The Mayor’s Corner 11/24/21

Mayor Randy Hibberd

By the time you read this article, the City’s Street Department should have the Christmas decorations up and on full display. May the Holiday Season begin!

Wow! What a great, gritty, hard-won victory for the Weiser Wolverine Football team. Good Job In winning the State Championship!

Over the last six months, the City has been working to update its comprehensive plan. A typical comprehensive plan has 17 different elements including current and future expectations regarding such things as demographics, community resources, land use, recreation, public services, etc. as well as recommendations to meet the future’s needs.

This is something most cities do every five to seven years. Part of the reason we wanted put one together now was to take advantage of and include the 2020 U.S. Census information which was to come out in September. It was originally expected that the project would be completed sometime in January or February 2022. The broad stroke Census information is out, however, we are being told the granular Census information we need to make our plan relevant will probably not be released until June 2022 at the earliest. This will delay the final report until some time after that. We will continue to work on the components of the report that can be moved forward before then.

That being said, part of the comprehensive plan relies on you! We need your input! Included with your next utility bill will be a survey. This will be an opportunity to voice your views regarding the City in a meaningful way. The results of the survey will be compiled and used to make observations and recommendations in the comprehensive plan.

So, when you get your utility bill, please take the time to complete the survey and return it to City Hall. The survey itself should take no more that 5 to 10 minutes to complete. At the same time that the utility bills are sent out, the survey will be posted to the City’s website. Your views are important to the City and to all of your fellow residents.

In other City news this week, we received the final three parts for the leaf vacuum on Monday and now are in the process of putting it back together. On the second day of picking up leaves, a hefty chunk of rock or concrete was sucked up, ruining multiple parts of the machine. Please, please, please, do not include put anything besides leaves in your leaf piles. Do not pile leaves over anything else that happens to be in the gutter. The City provides the leaf pickup service as a courtesy for all of the residents. Please help up continue to provide this service for free by limiting the leaf piles to leaves only.

Well, that’s it for this week. Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving, and a great Holiday Season.