Highway 2 Association sets meeting dates

Tim Leeds Havre Daily News [email protected]

The Highway 2 Association is holding meetings next week, including a Wednesday luncheon in Havre, to talk about new opportunities in improving U.S. Highway 2 through Montana. One of those opportunities is the Canadian province of Alberta joining the Ports to Plains Alliance, a nonprofit group trying to promote a trade corridor from Texas into Alberta and Saskatchewan. “There have been many great things happening lately that bode well for 4 for 2, and we want to discuss it with the folks in the number 2 corridor,” Bob Sivertsen, president of the Highway 2 Association, said in a press release. “Not in my lifetime have I seen more opportunities for northern Montana, or the state, for that matter. “It's all about commerce and trade, and we sit smack-dab in the middle of all the activity,” Sivertsen added. Joe Kiely of Limon, Colo., vice president of the Ports to Plains Alliance, will be accompanying Sivertsen on his road trip next week, with meetings set from Cut Bank to Williston, N.D. “The geographic region reaching from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Texas, through, Montana is North America's agricultural and energy heartland,” Kiely said in the press release. “This economic region is critical to our nation's future and the majority of our Urban populations and their decision makers do not know it. How is that going to be communicated?” The meetings come after state Sen. Ken “Kim” Hansen, D-Harlem, convinced the state Legislature to pass legislation removing some requirements on a law directing the Montana Department of Transportation to widen Highway 2 to four lanes across the state. Hansen's legislation removed requirements that projects to widen the highway to four lanes had to be funded with special federal appropriations with no required state match and that the projects would not impact other state highway projects. The meeting in Havre will start at noon at the Best Western Great Northern Inn. A no-host luncheon will be served, and Sivertsen requested that people RSVP by 5 p.m. today at 262-2346 or via e-mail at [email protected].