Monday, March 28, 2016

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. This week was fairly light on meetings outside of my regular meetings with department heads, but there are a couple of meetings worth mentioning.

Key Meetings 

-On Thursday, staff and I met to review the information that we will present to the members of the Use Tax Committee, whom you appointed on Monday night. The first meeting for the group has been scheduled for April 7th at 6:00 p.m. I do not anticipate having more than three or four meetings, but we will be prepared to bring a recommendation to the city council in May regarding placing the issue on the ballot later this year.

-Earlier today, I met with staff from our planning department, the chairperson of our Historic Preservation Commission, and representatives from Heritage Strategies, to get an update on the progress of our new historic preservation plan. As I mentioned in a previous update, they have expanded the scope of their plan beyond a traditional preservation plan to include an economic development component as well. They’ve done a great job engaging numerous organizations around the community in the conversation and development of the plan, and I think you will be pleased with the results.

Miscellaneous 

-Attached is the most recent project update from Public Works. Please let me know if you have any questions about these items.

-Thanks to the team efforts of our organization and an emphasis on safety, our premiums for property and casualty insurance will see a decrease of 8.41% this year, representing a savings of approximately $58,000. Patrick Hurn and Director Allgood from our HR department have been spearheading the safety program, and I would like to take an opportunity to acknowledge their roles in this effort. But safety is a team effort, and the message and emphasis on safety is making a measurable impact on claims, so my gratitude goes out to other employees as well.

-Later today, our employee engagement committee will be undertaking the task of reviewing our city’s mission and vision statements to determine if there is a need for any updates or changes. I’ve mentioned this topic in previous updates, but I wanted to let you know that we’re moving forward.

 -Staff continues to work on putting together information for new council member orientations. This year I will be resurrecting the past tradition of inviting new council members to meet department heads during an all-day orientation to go over roles, projects, programs that each department is working on, etc., to better prepare our new council members for their positions. Other cities that have done this well have also invited existing council members to join the meeting, so as soon as we can set a date/time/location, I will look to invite current council members as well.

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