Planning for Chester Main Street underway; public input sought
By Gregg Scott
Staff Writer
The idea of an Open House and “Project Introduction” to kick off the planning for a project to improve the quality, safety and beautification of Chester Main Street was decidedly a good idea for the folks in the Lake Almanor area, considering that almost 60 residents attended at least one of the two sessions scheduled on April 26 at the Almanor Rec. Center.
Jeff Schwein of Green Dot Transportation Solutions and Tod Tregenza of GHD Group Engineering Company were the two main speakers that introduced the key ideas regarding how the planning process should progress. First of all, they stressed that the number one focus right now is getting as much information from the community as possible about what is needed to achieve the community’s vision for the Main Street throughfare. It seems there is a scheduled Caltrans work project for Main Street that is probably three to five years away. These two firms have been hired to help the community to make plans that can be incorporated into that project or at least, not be harmful or at odds with the highway work. These gatherings were merely to make Lake Almanor residents aware of the possibilities and to gather ideas.
They received many, many ideas on how the Hwy. 36 corridor through town could be improved for safety, user friendliness, better business access and beautification. The planning meeting and some workshops will be ongoing this summer with the two companies hoping to have a draft proposal ready for inspection by the community by the end of the year. It was stressed numerous times that the more ideas they get from local users the better grasp of community needs they will have.
