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 update.

Key Meetings 

-On Monday, I attended the monthly Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce board meeting along with Mayor Seibert. We gave updates on the April election, our citizen’s academy, the solid waste agreement coming to you on Monday, etc.

-On Tuesday, staff in the city manager’s office met with Human Resources Director Dave Allgood to discuss the ins-and-outs of our new volunteer program. The program will be managed through my office, with AtCM Brian Kelly coordinating the program. We are working on marketing efforts with the assistance of our intern, Kaneisha Giles, to ramp up the program. But we had our first interview with a potential volunteer who may help us out at the front desk of city hall.

-Later that afternoon, AtCM Kelly, Parks Director Scott Garrie and Assistant Director Paul Bloomberg met with council candidate Taylor Brown to answer questions he had relative to parks & recreation activities, future plans, etc.

-On Wednesday, I met with Chamber President Rob O’Brian to discuss various economic development efforts. If you haven’t been by there lately, Owens Corning is nearing completion on the demolition of their site, and site grading work has begun elsewhere on the property as they move towards construction of their new facility. We also discussed the progress of the KCUMB medical school project as well.

-Earlier today, AtCM Kelly and I participated in a conference call with Jon Johnson and Chris Fabian to discuss the next phase of the priority-based budgeting process. I anticipate that early next week, I will be sending you a link to a survey to get your input on the results that have been developed after combing through the various strategic documents that have been developed over the past few years. Instructions on how to complete the survey will accompany the link. Once the results have been vetted/agreed upon, you will be given another opportunity to help better-define the results that have been validated by you. For example, one of the results we have identified for consideration is, “Well-planned, well-managed, and well-regulated recovery, rebuilding and growth.” The first survey will afford you the opportunity to state whether you agree with/support this result and by how much, or whether you don’t think it is a result we are here to achieve. The second survey will then ask for your ideas about what it means to accomplish that particular result. So for example, you will be asked to answer the question, “When the city ____, this result will be achieved.” So by filling in the blank (several times), you will be helping develop the definitions and the measures by which we will be able to say our programs achieve that given result. I’m very excited to be entering this next phase of the priority-based budget process. While all of this is taking place, at the staff level we will also be entering into the costing phase of the programs that we have identified. AtCM Kelly will be meeting with PBB staff next week to embark on that phase of the process.

Miscellaneous

-As indicated in a press release earlier this week, the annual leaf pick-up program has concluded for this season. I would like to thank the staff in our public works and parks departments for completing this program.

-Sewer line repair work is underway over at Memorial Hall. The interior plumbing work was completed through the parks department, and we have moved on to repairing the exterior line. The anticipated completion date is the end of next week, which will allow us to reopen all of the interior bathrooms and allow more than 500 guests into the building for events. I would like to acknowledge the teamwork that took place once again between our public works and parks departments for completing this project.

-Finally, we have completed the market study as it pertains to our pay plan. I will be meeting with department heads next week to go over the results and make any last minute corrections, but I anticipate sharing the results with employees and the council soon. As the next phase of the project, I have also asked our staff to do a comparison of benefits among the cities that we have included in the market study, which will be presented to you as well as soon as we have compiled the information.

In the Pipeline

-Just a reminder about the work session scheduled for Monday, February 8th. We will be providing you with an update on the JHAP program, having a discussion about the change order policy, and discussing our building permit process.