BY CINDY TOOPES COURIER STAFF WRITER
November 21, 2008 01:08 pm
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OTTUMWA — Strategic planning for the city’s future has several common threads no matter if you’re talking about neighborhood vitality, quality of life, diversity or downtown Ottumwa.
Communication and getting to know your neighbor, community pride, common areas for play and cleaning up your yard or business (front and back) are just a few of those threads.
Sixty-three people of the citizens advisory committee participated in the third session of the city’s strategic planning sessions.
Jeff Schott of the University of Iowa’s Institute of Public Affairs guided the groups in preparing goal statements for the top categories. Last time he helped the advisory committee designate categories for the city’s top concerns.
At this session, Schott asked the participants to identify one or more goals for each category they named at the last meeting and write a goal statement.
Each table had a card bearing a category theme, which included neighborhood vitality, quality of life, diversity, government and infrastructure, downtown, education/health, economic development, housing, environmental issues and public safety.
Schott also asked the groups to identify issues, problems, concerns for each goal statement; and, he asked them to identify strategies to achieve each goal.
Neighborhood vitality could involve a program like Neighborhood Watch. People can adopt a block and get to know who the neighbors are, pick up trash, watch for criminal activity and call city officials if a street light is out.
Jody Gates served as the secretary for the “Neighborhood Vitality” table. She said one of the big goals was “pride in ownership.” One of the citizens at her table said perhaps a resident who won’t take care of his property should receive a citation from the city.
Goals at the neighborhood table included areas to meet in the neighborhood, common areas for play, tidy yards, eliminating graffiti and tearing down derelict houses.
If a derelict house is torn down, the vacant lot could be seeded and used as a common area for the neighborhood.
Goals at the “Diversity” table included promoting tolerance and acceptance and improving communication among subgroups (racial, cultural, socioeconomic, disability, ethnic, sexual orientation or religion).
Steve Hanson said one of the diversity issues is how to get people together when there are multiple languages.
“When a [message] is in English or Spanish, do the Bosnians feel left out?” he said.
Ed Ball said Ottumwa has 17 groups who speak a different language.
Hanson said increasing communication would help eradicate prejudice.
Andres Perez suggested welcome packets for new residents.
Some sort of center where the staff speaks various languages would help, Lorena Perez said.
The New Iowan Center is for anyone new to Iowa, not just Latinos, according to Ball.
“When Andres and I moved here, we already spoke English but we didn’t know about the New Iowan Center,” Lorena Perez said.
Hanson wondered if real estate agents could be on the front line in telling new residents where to find pertinent information about the community.
A Web site that allows the user to select a language could improve communication, according to Jon Elbaum. “One click” and all the information would be displayed in the selected language.
The Diversity group, which also included Dan Stroda, said some of their strategies were billboards that promote the city in more than one language, promoting events aimed at diverse groups at Bridge View Center, study circles and writing positive letters to the editor as soon as they see the newspaper has printed a negative letter that attacks some subgroup.
The next strategic planning session will be 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, at Bridge View Center.
Cindy Toopes can be reached at (641) 683-5376 or via e-mail at cindy@ottumwacourier.com.
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