Turtle Lake has it all – almost
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
The takeaway for some of the folks attending Thursday morning’s first comprehensive planning meeting was that Turtle Lake has a lot to offer people – almost anything anybody could want – the city just doesn’t do enough to let people know what a terrific little town Turtle Lake is.
When SRF Consulting’s Scott Harmstead asked those attending the meeting – business owners and other city representatives, what basic essential services the city doesn’t offer that people are looking for in a hometown, he was met by silence. Turtle Lake checks the boxes on a lot of city amenities. There’s a hospital, a clinic, a convenience store, a flower and gift shop, a hardware store, a grocery store, an elevator, insurance offices, a salon, a couple different financial institutions – the list goes on. There’s even an airport on the edge of town.
Eventually the idea of having a bar and grill/more restaurants was mentioned to offer another option for people to meet and have a meal and get together with family and friends.
“If we’re missing anything, it’s a place to socialize,” said City Commissioner Dianne Zenker.
Other than that, Turtle Lake is pretty solid, they agreed – until they came up with what seems to be the one thing that could be holding the community back from seeing real growth – the lack of housing.
