1994-01-25 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Council Meeting Minutes January 25, 1994 Page 2 Mayor Benke's 1994 State of the City Address. continued I The events of 1993 should mark the end of the grieving process! Reconstruction for our future neighborhood has begun and we will soon see new townhomes, a Family Service Center, and a new commercial/retail center to complement our City Hall, the Fire Station, Golden Pond and the Ralph Reeder Center as a community activity center. No, we won't have a traditional, old style downtown. But, we will have a place to be proud of. A place where services are provided and people live and enjoy themselves and our heritage. Above all, we are putting an end to the uncertainty about what to do with downtown! We can now shift our attention to other issues. Before we make the shift, however, we need to acknowledge and celebrate our 1993 successes. I cannot recall a year during my service on the Council when we've had to deal with so many tough issues. We resolved questions not only with the downtown area and the construction of the Family Service Center. We also resolved key issues and moved forward on important projects like the Silver Lake Road reconstruction, the Church Upon the Rock/Rice Creek Center, the refinancing of Brightondale, and the Four-City Senior Center. We processed over $45 million in permits for new construction and remodeling in ' 1993, a record that we anticipate being broken again this year. We hired a new City Manager and several police officers. We adopted a balanced budget, updated our 5- Year Financial Plan, and initiated another phase of our groundwater cleanup system. We rebuilt several neighborhood street systems and increased programs for recreation and training. I All in all, 1993 was a busy, dramatic, and successful year in New Brighton. I fully expect 1994 to be more of the same -- exciting opportunities to revitalize parts of our City that need work and to build on our rich store of assets. We have two key new assets to be celebrated. First, we welcome Char Samuelson to the Council team. While we thank and will miss Dana Rebelein, I am confident that Char will be a major source of energy, ideas, and wisdom. We will also enjoy the talent . being added by Matt Fulton who brings new experiences, perspectives, and ideas needed to keep us challenged and moving ahead. Looking ahead, several priorities emerge for action. In addition to completing downtown construction and the Family Service Center and keeping up efforts to make all of our activities and services effective and affordable, the Council and staff identified eight priority challenges for the coming months at our annual retreat. In the coming weeks we will address the following tasks: 1) 2) Review and implementation of the recommendations of the Housing Quality Task Force; Development and implementation of a plan to capitalize on the emerging telecommunications technologies both internally and as an economic development focus; Development and implementation of a community leadership development program that will ensure we have a continuing source of new leaders; Accelerated plan of action to clean up the contaminated MacGillis & Gibbs site; Increased attention to business retention, expansion, and recruitment efforts; I 3) 4) 5)