Arlington calls on volunteer help to promote downtown projects

ARLINGTON — People in Arlington have a lot of ideas about how to promote their hometown.

What they don’t have is a lot of money. In this city where municipal employees take unpaid furlough days to help balance the budget, the coffers can’t fund new welcome signs, new public restrooms or efforts to highlight historical attractions.

To get tourists, business owners and new residents into town, it’s going to take a volunteer community effort, city spokeswoman Kristin Banfield said, and in Arlington, that’s possible.

“With budgets so tight, every little bit of volunteer work helps, especially when we’re promoting the great things we have to offer as a city,” Banfield said. “These are not extravagant goals.”

After all, community fundraising efforts and donated building materials helped construct the popular gazebo in Legion Park downtown a few years ago, she said.

Assistant city administrator Paul Ellis is eager to show people the current community development ideas, all of which have the blessing and encouragement of Mayor Margaret Larson and the City Council.

“The city is feeling the crunch of this economic downturn, but bad times often force people to think in a different direction,” Ellis said. “Some of these things are going to happen because Arlington still has the sense of community it had when it was a small town.”

The ideas that need help:

The Centennial Trail Coalition of Snohomish County wants to build and plant a floral crossing on the old railroad trestle and future Centennial Trail bridge over the Stillaguamish River at Arlington.

The idea is fashioned after the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, Mass., which has vines and flowers that hang from the bridge and attracts visitors from around the world.

Call Bea Randall at 360-435-3892.

The city needs a public restroom and a visitors center in Legion Park, just off the Centennial Trail.

The city Parks, Arts and Recreation Commission is pushing for construction of a building that would resemble the city’s former railroad depot to house a welcome center. The original railroad depot was closed in the 1970s and carted away in the 1980s.

The city has a plan for a 900-square-foot building and a little money from hotel-motel tax revenue, but the depot can’t be built without community participation, Ellis said. Fundraisers and donations are needed.

Call Paul Ellis at 360-403-4603.

The Arlington Arts Council is asking for proposals from local artists to create gateway welcome signs at the five major entrances to the city, on highways 9, 530 and 531.

Details are available by calling parks director Sarah Hegge at 360-403-3448. The deadline is Oct. 15, so the proposals can be displayed at the art commission’s Fall into Art Auction on Oct. 17.

A portion of proceeds from the auction will go to the sign project.

Call Sarah Arney at 360-435-3778.

The Arlington Arts Council also is running a community art project to attract tourists headed to British Columbia for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

More than 350 painted plywood fish are set to be displayed along I-5 beginning Oct. 24.

Call Sarah Hegge at 360-403-3448.

Parks commissioner Frank Barden is working on an update of the self-guided historical tour of downtown Arlington, which was produced in 2003 for the city’s centennial celebration. A tour booklet would be available at locations throughout the downtown area.

Call Frank Barden at 360-435-9123.

Volunteers are trying to finish up the new welcome center at the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum by 2010.

The gazebolike welcome center will resemble an open-air Salish longhouse that shelters a 5-foot by 10-foot carved cedar relief map of the Stillaguamish River watershed as it was in 1910, when Arlington was the cedar shake mill capital of the world.

What’s needed is an additional $11,000 to put the roof on the center.

Call the museum at 360-435-7289.

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.

How to help

For more information about volunteering in Arlington, call 360-403-4673, e-mail volunteer@arlingtonwa.gov or go to [URL]www.ci.arlington.wa.us;http://www.ci.arlington.wa.us[URL] and pull down the “Living in Arlington” menu on the city’s Web site.[/URL]