City plans ‘envisioning’ session toward extending 10-year plan

August 12, 2009 01:09 am

— By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
Joplin residents can help plot the course of the city or perhaps even their neighborhoods.
That’s the intent of the city’s second “envisioning” meeting to be conducted Saturday.
It’s an opportunity for people to tell the City Council and city administrators what issues or projects are important, or what needs affect Joplin’s quality of life.
City officials say residents or representatives of organizations may speak Saturday morning. Each person will be given five minutes.
Ideas submitted at the session will be categorized, and the council will rank the categories at its retreat next spring. It will use that information to update the “Blueprint for the Future,” a 10-year plan to guide the city’s efforts toward making changes.
“The process has worked great,” said Mayor Gary Shaw. “I think it’s been outstanding. Any time you can get people to come out and buy into what we are doing, it’s great.”
The mayor said he is so sold on the effort and the resulting plan that he asked the city staff to hang poster-size copies of the blueprint on the wall of the council’s informal meeting room at City Hall.
“That’s so we can say we’ve completed this and we’ve done that, and we’ve got that to do yet,” Shaw said. “It’s a good way to be able to say ‘Hey, I’ve done something.’”
Resident reaction
Crystal Harrington, who represents the Home Builders Association of Southwest Missouri and co-owns Columbia Traders, a downtown deli, attended the 2007 session regarding the blueprint. She encouraged the city to add technology to its building-permit operation so that building requests could be handled more quickly.
“I thought the process they went through and the way they did that was very valuable,” Harrington said. “Asking for input from citizens is ideally the way that whole system of government should work.
“The issues I raised really haven’t been addressed, and it’s probably not because of the city malingering, but because of the downturn in the housing market. The implementation of computerized systems to speed up our process is moot now because there are less permits being issued. Building is not as fervent as it was.”
Drawing on ideas
While the request that Harrington made has not been developed, many others have.
When the council ranked the goals to be pursued via the blueprint, building and sustaining a downtown arts district and spurring cultural activities was placed in the top five.
Sharon Beshore attended the 2007 session to speak on behalf of the arts.
“I loved participating two years ago because I thought it was a great idea to get community feedback,” Beshore said. “We were able to present that we thought this was an ideal time, with the growth of arts in Joplin, to take it to the next level. It helps with downtown revitalization and economic development as well as increasing the quality of life, and it is a way to attract people and businesses to locate in an area.”
The effort to promote the arts took off as a result of the 2007 session, she said. Now, a cultural arts committee has been put together at the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce with the goal of building opportunities.
“It’s brought together a great alliance of the city, the chamber and the arts community, and people who have an interest in seeing Joplin develop,” Beshore said.
Other projects
Code enforcement or neighborhood improvement is another example of projects that have been accomplished or are in the works from the blueprint approach.
Troy Bolander, community development manager for the city, said the city is in the final stages of a yearlong project to clean up and repair a neighborhood east of Junge Field. Residents were assisted with yard cleaning and house repairs, the streets were resurfaced, broken sidewalks were replaced, and more streetlights were installed to discourage crime.
“We’re in the process of looking at a second neighborhood improvement district,” Bolander said. “We haven’t selected a location yet. It would be another grass-roots organization. We would approach neighbors and talk about the issues facing their neighborhood, and see how to address those issues.”
Expectations
Those attending Saturday’s “envisioning” meeting can expect to hear some of the same themes.
The city has done a good job of promoting building restoration downtown, Harrington said, and now it needs to help fill those buildings with sustainable businesses.
A retail boutique that was next door to the deli recently closed, a troubling signal to Harrington.
“Unless somebody does something very quickly and very soon, nobody’s going to be in business downtown very long,” she said.
Beshore said she will attend the session in an effort to help steer the future toward a bustling arts movement in the downtown district.
Reviewing results
Accomplishments as a result of the 2007 session will be reviewed during Saturday’s meeting.
And, the mayor hopes that residents will once again turn out.
“I think our citizens, overall, have been extremely cooperative in working with us and helping us” to bring about changes sought by the plan, he said. “And they’ve been very encouraging, and that’s good to hear.
“The reason it works is people, our folks, are getting involved.”


Saturday meeting

The “envisioning” meeting will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Senior Center, 22nd Street and Jackson Avenue. A time slot of 8:45 to 10 a.m. has been set aside for residents and representatives of organizations to speak about what they want included in the next plan for Joplin’s future. Those who wish to speak may make a request by calling the city manager’s office at 624-0820, ext. 201. People also will be registered the morning of the session if they request to speak.

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