FAIRMONT– The city of Fairmont is looking for community members to join a new planning committee which will help develop an Energy and Environmental Resilience Plan. Work on the plan will be facilitated by city staff and a representative of Region Nine, which has provided a $12,250 grant to fund the planning process.

Fairmont’s Community Development Director, Pat Oman, said that work on the project was started by the city’s former administrator, Matt Skaret, who wrote the grant. Oman took the lead on it in November following Skaret’s departure.

Region Nine is Fairmont’s federal economic development district. It reached out to Fairmont about the grant because the community met the criteria for a community resiliency plan.

“They’ve done several. The one they showed me as a benchmark was in Comfrey and I thought it was interesting,” Oman said.

Right now the city is working on putting together a committee to identify a project in Fairmont.

“Can people come together and think of an issue or topic for the city that greater research and planning would be helpful for? What’s really important that if we didn’t have would be an issue,” Oman said.

One such thing would be water quality or quantity.

“If the water goes bad, what’s our plan?” Oman said.

The committee could go that route or look into housing or wastewater treatment or something else entirely.

“There could be a whole host of ideas that people will throw out but the group will have to coalesce around one idea,” Oman explained.

Along with about 10 community members, Councilors Wayne Hasek and James Kotewa will sit on the committee. The meetings will be monthly from February to October and will be facilitated by a Region Nine representative though Oman will be there and other staff may be pulled in to assist depending on what issue is chosen to address.

“The real goal is to put together a plan and strategy to address what the issue is and then use the document to continue on with other funding applications,” Oman said.

There are no educational or other requirements that community members need to be considered. They just need to have the motivation to contribute to something, be able work with others and attend monthly meetings.

Those interested in being a part of the planning committee can reach out to Oman at poman@fairmont.org.