Late last fall, the Tribal Council asked FWRC Division staffers Tom McDonald and Lester Bigcrane to help shepherd the planning effort with Lake County, the City of Ronan and the Tribes for the newly acquired Tribal and County lands in Ronan. The county and the city jointly purchased 31 acres west of town and the tribes acquired the adjacent 31 acres with the intent by all parties to jointly plan for various community needs. A few items on the needs list are to move the current Ronan fair uses and community center/county extension offices to the site, along with constructing a recreation facility similar to the Arlee Recreation Center the Tribes built two years ago for the Arlee community.

The first item worked on by our NRD staff was to officially organize the previous ad hoc planning group into a formal committee with an inter-local agreement between the city, tribes and county. Secondly, an architecture site planning team was brought in from Montana State University to help facilitate conceptual site/building plan alternatives. Various community need surveys were developed and completed by the group. The staff then participated and helped facilitate monthly planning group meetings and Ronan Tribal Council District meetings.

Based on the most frequent responses for needed activities identified from the tribal member, area high schools, and the general community surveys, the Tribal Council is supporting those related developments at the 62 acre site. More specifically for the 31 acres of Tribal land, the Tribal Council want to see what the conceptual plans will look like if it contains the following items:

• Indoor swimming facilities with a competition pool, therapy pool, water slide and kiddy pool.
   
• Indoor recreation facility similar but larger than Arlee’s with basketball courts and fitness/weight exercise rooms
   
• Indoor ice skating rink/roller rink.
   
• Indoor laser tag facility.
   
• Outdoor areas and fields for multi purpose activities such as baseball, soccer, native games, basketball and powwow arbor.
   
• Kids fishing pond.

The planning committee is also looking at developing a 9,000 person maximum capacity multi purpose indoor arena, a 47,000 sq. ft. exhibition and extension building, 37,000 sq. ft. of horse and beef barns, and 28,000 sq. ft. of multi purpose building space for small animals and show rooms. Additional space will be identified for a midway and carnival set up and an outdoor warm up arena for rodeos and horse shows.