Monday, October 19, 2015

Joplin city manager provides weekly update

(Joplin City Manager Sam Anselm provided the following update to the City Council Friday.)

Good afternoon, everyone. Please see below for this week’s (brief) update.

Key Meetings

-On Tuesday, I attended the JRC meeting. The RFP for the affordable senior housing development is due on November 24th . Respondents still have until November 10th to submit questions pertaining to the RFP.

-On Wednesday, Director Garrie, Director Haase, and I met to discuss the information gathered to date on the city’s costs to operate Joe Becker Stadium, in advance of our discussion on October 26th to meet with the team representatives during our work session. We have been gathering leases between other independent teams and cities who own the baseball facilities in which they operate, to develop information for you to review for the meeting.

-On Thursday evening, I attended the Shifferdecker Golf Association’s meeting at the invitation of Councilman Glaze. I am not a golfer, but I appreciated the opportunity to visit the golf course, tour the facilities with our golf pro, Daryn Buholt, and (attempt to) answer questions from the members of the association about the current and future needs at the course.

-Earlier today, I participated in an economic development tour hosted by the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. We visited the following places on our tour:

The new field house on the campus of Missouri Southern
the new interchange at I-44/Prigmor Avenue leading into the industrial park
Eagle Picher’s new lithium ion battery facility (currently under construction) o the new KCUMB-Joplin campus
the Leffen Center for Autism o the Wildwood Ranch development
the new Owens Corning facility, and o the future Advanced Training & Technology Center 

We ended the tour at Thomas Jefferson IDS with lunch and a tour of the school. Our community has a lot to be proud of. Companies are investing in our community and it’s been a pleasure to witness our continued growth.

Miscellaneous

-$62,770 was collected from the auction last weekend. Proceeds from the sale of those items will go back into the funds from which the items originated.

-Our friends at the Economic Development Administration are reviewing the bid documents for the new library, and barring any major issues, the RFP should be available early next week.

-Progress continues on researching and developing the new or updated policies and procedures that I mentioned in my report last week. We are close to having several draft policies ready for review by departments, human resources, and our city attorney’s office.

In the Pipeline

-Next Tuesday, we (city staff) will begin the priority-based budgeting process by learning the steps of completing a “program inventory,” whereby we convert our budget line items into programs. The process entails identifying all of the programs we offer to our residents and assigning a cost to those programs, so it will take several weeks to complete. But while staff is working on the program inventory piece, we (the city council and my office) can begin working on identifying the results we want to measure those programs against. I strongly believe the public needs to be engaged in this process, so I will be working with the CPBB to begin mapping out that piece, along with a timeline for future meetings where we can discuss the community goals (or results) we hope to achieve together for the benefit of our community.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr City Manager, when you are out in the public and especially for city functions could you at least dress the part? The Chamber tour you took Friday and you wore jean and looked unprofessional. Please dress the part if you are going to act the part.

Robert said...

If the only criticism you have of the city manager is the fact that he dressed down on a Friday, I think the prospects in Joplin are looking up. Personally, I like it when a person in a position of leadership acts like a regular person. It makes him/her more approachable.

Sam A. said...

We have casual Fridays at city hall. Generally speaking, I'm less concerned with how our employees dress than I am with the quality of service they're delivering to our residents.

But I do appreciate your comment; I will bring along a sport coat next year if I attend the Chamber's tour.

(And I'm glad the video didn't include a shot of my Chuck Taylors with the neon green laces, but they're comfy, and I only paid like $10 for them at an outlet store.)

Anonymous said...

^ Fashion Police

Anonymous said...

Ten Buck Chucks!

I'm old enough to have played basketball when shorts were short and Chuck Taylors were basketball shoes.

Anonymous said...

Who's the homeless guy in the picture?