Joplin city manager provides weekly update

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

Good afternoon, everyone. Please see below for this week’s update. This week was fairly light on meetings, so this update will be brief.

Key Meetings

-On Thursday, staff members from several departments and I attended the East Town neighborhood meeting to discuss projects and plans for the redevelopment of our city’s oldest neighborhood as part of our NID 4 program. We received input from several residents at the first meeting, which took place last fall, and last night’s meeting was designed to follow up on that input and identify possible next steps. I’d like to commend our neighborhood services supervisor, Stephen Grindle, and Tyler Overstreet, our planner, for their work in coordinating the meeting and future efforts in the NID 4 project.

-Earlier this morning I met with employees in the municipal courts department to provide information and answer questions relative to the pay plan.

-Afterward, we had several officers sworn in on the second floor

-Later this afternoon, assistant director Dan Salisbury and I are meeting with Joplin Schools officials to discuss the 20th Street CDBG-DR project, which will have an impact on the high school. They also identified some safety issues as part of a safety audit their organization performed several weeks ago, so we will likely discuss those issues as well, as many of them deal with street crossings. I’ll provide a better recap on that meeting next week.

Miscellaneous 

-In addition to this week’s update from Public Works, I wanted to pass along a few other items from our weekly department head meeting: o High Ave. was scheduled to be milled today, in anticipation of new asphalt being laid on Monday, weather permitting. We are bumping up against the Blasters’ Opening Day schedule, but access to the south parking lot from High Avenue should be opened by their first regular season game on May 19th .

-The audit of our CDBG-DR program by the HUD Office of the Inspector General is still ongoing. There’s not much to report out at this point, but staff has been working to provide information and answer questions as needed.

-Our health department recently assisted with a low-cost rabies clinic with the idea that we might offer one of our own in the future. The event went pretty well, with about 180 shots being administered.

-Our city clerk’s office recently finished the displays of tornado-related items (letters, artwork, etc.) that the city received after 5/22/11. Those are on display at City Hall in both the mezzanine area, and up on the 5th floor.

=As of today, the forecast for our volunteer day next Tuesday calls for rain, but several departments have been working to coordinate a number of projects for volunteers to work on. At last count we had around 100 volunteers scheduled to participate in the event, but if we need to cancel for the safety of everyone involved, at this time there are no plans to reschedule the event. Several groups who are participating have indicated an interest in continuing to volunteer with the city throughout the year, which is promising. I’d like to recognize Brian Kelly for his efforts in growing our volunteer program to this point.

 Also attached to this week’s update is the monthly update from Chamber president Rob O’Brian. He will be giving his quarterly presentation at our meeting on Monday night.