Anselm: City can afford to pay $10K for Connect2Culture's master plan

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

Good afternoon, everyone. Please see below for this week’s abbreviated update.

Key Meetings

-On Wednesday, I had a meeting with Director Heatherly and Assistant Director Salisbury to get an update on the status of our CIST projects. Attached is a list of updates on these and other projects taking place within public works.

-On Thursday, staff from finance and my office sat in on a presentation from Chris Fabian with the Center for Priority Based Budgeting to line out the next phase of PBB…costing out the programs that the departments have identified. The goal will be to associate every employee and every line item in our budget with a program, in order to develop a true cost of each program we offer. It will take a few weeks to get through it with departments, but we’re making progress.

Miscellaneous

-The sewer line repair work at Memorial Hall has been completed, and all interior restrooms are now usable. Hats off to our parks and public works crews for completing the project in a timely fashion, in advance of a number of events that will take place at Memorial Hall beginning in March.

-Crossland Construction has completed installation of the gutters at Joe Becker Stadium, and our parks department has completed some work to address the right field drainage issues. The stadium will be open again this weekend for a baseball tournament, so you can expect to see activity pick up over there until the Blasters take possession of the facility on May 1st in preparation of their upcoming season.

-Following up on our last regular meeting, Director Haase and Director Tuttle will be working on an agreement with the Joplin Proud Committee on the use of the $25,000 that you approved on Monday night for the events surrounding the five year anniversary of the tornado. The funds will come from CVB fund balance. If we cannot have it on the agenda for our next regular meeting, we should have it in place by the first meeting in March.

-Similarly, there are sufficient funds remaining in the parking fund to cover the $10,000 for the master plan requested by council member Stanley for Connect2Culture’s planning efforts for their performing arts center.