Reviewing present priorities, looking ahead

This fall the city of Jackson held a retreat at the Jackson Civic Center. Attending were the board of aldermen, key city staff members and myself.

This is the third retreat I have held as mayor. I envision these meetings as very important to assure the Board of Aldermen have an opportunity to assess the progress of the city and to set the priorities going forward.

During the last two meetings, the sessions have included reviewing the present key priorities, the proposing of new priorities, discussion and finally voting on the top ten priories.

This year we began by reviewing our progress on last year's priorities then moved on to a thorough review of the community survey. If you recall during the summer the city of Jackson conducted a comprehensive city-wide community survey. The survey was managed by the ETC Institute of Olathe, Kansas. ETC partnered with the city to develop the questionnaire, conduct the survey, compile the results, and present the results to the board of aldermen. Included was a comparison of the city of Jackson results to cities of our size across the United States. The results are available on the city website at www.jackson.org.

We were very pleased with the strong participation of the survey by the citizens which enabled ETC to give a high confidence level to the results. The participation came from all geographical areas, age groups, and income levels.

The review of the survey results led to discussion sessions of the top priorities as identified by the survey. These discussions were led by various members of the city staff and resulted in action plans going forward. These action plans will be used for developing the key priorities for 2018, formulating the city's annual financial budget, and developing follow-up steps to execute these priorities.

The final part of the retreat was a review of the city's financials, including revenue and expenditures by category.

In future columns, I will discuss the priorities in more detail, but I would like to include the list of those priority projects we discussed:

• Construction of a new Jackson police station; staffing levels of the police department patrols; fire department staffing levels; and consolidation of dispatch with Cape Girardeau County.
• Study of the traffic flow in the city of Jackson; the identification of the top projects to alleviate the worst traffic congestion points.
• Curb-side recycling -- a high interest on the community survey. Study of cost and options to implement in Jackson.
• Swimming pool. Options to replace the 40-year old swimming pool.
• Bathrooms in city parks. Additional bathrooms in lower park area and by the municipal band shell and replacement/upgrade of present bathrooms.
• Condition of streets. Long-range plans to continue to repair/replace older streets.
• Retail Initiative. Continued partnership with the Chamber of Commerce to encourage the expansion of retail trade in the city of Jackson.
• UJRO/Parking. Continued partnership with the Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization and the Main Street Organization for the improvement of the Uptown Jackson area including the present parking availability and areas for improvement.
• Annexation Strategy. Development of a strategy to address the annexation of additional land to Jackson including friendly-annexation requests and opportunities to offer city services to new areas.
• As we move forward in the new year, the board of aldermen will discuss these priorities and set goals to for the coming year.

Dwain Hahs serves as mayor of the city of Jackson. He can be reached at mayorhahs@jacksonmo.org.