2008 Mayoral Goals
- Complete our Comprehensive Plan and initiate a Capital Improvement Plan
A mayoral goal for 2007 was to initiate a Comprehensive Plan. During the final quarter of last year, we appointed a Comprehensive Plan Task Force, hired a consultant, allocated funds, and scheduled a December, 2008 completion date.
Peer collaboration during the comprehensive planning process invites us to envision our community in 2030, challenges us to identify trends that will shape it, and directs us to realize how we can shape it ourselves. Besides enabling officials to holistically examine and prioritize current and future issues and projects, the finalized plan will act as a pliable roadmap and hypothetical timeline for completion or implementation of projects identified during the planning process.
A Capital Improvement Plan is a capital budgeting device that will help us transform ideas outlined in our comprehensive plan into tangible reality. It will empower our Council, staff, and committees to budget and save for projects and capital expenditures.
2. Update our City Charter
The City of Arlington, as designated by the State, is a Home Rule Charter City. Upon incorporation as a city, in 1948, Arlington adopted a City Charter—a set of operating by-laws, the municipal equivalent to the U.S. Constitution. Charter updates, the most recent in 1982, are then akin to U.S. Constitutional Amendments, therefore, this is a process that must be entered with deliberate, careful study
The most resent update to our City Charter was made in 1982. Upon recent review, our city council has preliminarily identified a few sections within our Charter as somewhat antiquated, and may be in need of simple updates. Other sections may be candidates for complete revision.
By City Council resolution, a proposed Charter Commission, composed of 15 city residents, has been submitted to the District Judge for appointment. This Commission, when officially appointed, will further review the current City Charter and recommend to the City Council any changes and/or updates. The Council may then adopt those recommendations by ordinance.
3. Attain “Tree City USA” status, as defined by the National Arbor Day Foundation.
As city residents, we are heirs to a precious natural resource--our urban forest. Not only does this forest make our property more aesthetically pleasing and monetarily valuable, it adds to our sense of neighborhood and community, as well as reminds us of our responsibility to exercise stewardship to our environment. Urban forests, like all forest ecosystems, are enormously valuable in our efforts to sustain clean air and equally essential in the ongoing campaign to decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide. Preservation of our urban forest is a direct, inexpensive means by which we can contribute to these global issues.
The mission of the National Arbor Day Foundation is to protect and enhance all forests. The Foundation’s “Tree City USA” program is designed to recognize cities that value and take measures to protect, maintain, and improve their urban forests. Criteria to be met by a city for “Tree City USA” recognition include the adoption of a community tree ordinance, a city forester program with an annual budget at least $2 per capita, a standing tree board or department, and an annual Arbor Day observance and proclamation.
Along with allocating funds in our 2008 budget for a city forestry program, our city council has identified a need to update our existing tree ordinance (adopted in 1979), and assigned initial tasks to city staff and committees.
4. Co-operate with Sibley Medical Center to
enhance our Ambulance Department.
Our volunteer ambulance service does an outstanding job of serving our community and providing for our safety and health care. Our City Council, however, has become increasingly aware of the diminishing number of options available for covering day-calls, as well as staffing and training an adequate number of volunteers for our ambulance service. We must find alternatives to fill these gaps, while maintaining the volunteer nature of our department.
The City of Arlington is incredibly fortunate to claim the Sibley Medical Center as our municipally-owned medical facility. With the common goal of providing for the health of our community residents, these two municipal entities can work together to broaden and enhance our potential options for resolution of our current staffing issues. With such a co-operative arrangement, SMC may discover a very direct method of improving urgent patient health care, a substantial supplemental line of revenue, and an avenue to increase clinic and hospital patronage.
We have many logistic issues to discuss and resolve, so opening lines of dialog between representatives of SMC, ambulance service officials, and ambulance service stake-holders, is imperative in accurate identification of our respective needs and fiscal concerns, and to dispel any initial latent misgivings. Pragmatism and respect between all groups will lead to sound decision-making in determining a lasting, symbiotic solution.
5. Create a Geographic Information System for the City of Arlington.
A Geographic Information System is a spatially-organized set of digital data that ties information to geographic points, and enables the user to extrapolate information on an individual piece of property, street, development, or area. Early in our comprehensive planning process, we were made aware of the power, value and necessity of Geographic Information Systems.
Our city departments of planning, zoning, utilities, administration, public safety would be made infinitely more efficient and technologically up-to-date with the purchase of a GIS. It would facilitate interdepartmental communication as well as provide an easily-accessed depository for historical geographical data.
Expense is the clear impediment to implementation of a GIS. Our city council has begun assessment of necessary scope of the project as well as preliminary research into possible cost- sharing with other levels of government, likely multi-budget-cycle capital expenditure planning, and definite future maintenance and updating cost obligations.
