By Meg Peters
Review Staff Writer
From big projects to little projects, the Lake Orion village council is grabbing 2015 by the horns.
Not only will council be hard at work this year implementing nine community goals, for the first time ever they have established a community wide mission, vision and?’core values to help guide their decision making process.
Village Manager Darwin McClary is quite excited for the new focus.
‘I think council really understands the importance of working toward being a benchmark community,? he said.
‘We want to be on the leading edge. We want to be progressive, we want to be trendsetters, and we want to embrace the uniqueness and diversity of our citizens and our businesses.?
The mission statement, vision, core values and goals statements will be approved at the’February 9’village council meeting.
Some of the important themes council will zero in on this year, McClary said, include assessing short term and long term capital needs, such as street improvements in the community, as well as assessing new water and sewer rates.
‘We’ve been experiencing operating losses in our water and sewer fund, so we really need to get on a schedule where we are reviewing the water rates and adjusting them every year to keep up with inflation and other cost increases.?
Many of the goals from 2014/15 carried over to the new fiscal year, however, council also established two completely new goals, as well as multiple new objectives.
The first additional goal council will begin tackling this year will be to promote open, transparent, inclusive and collaborative governance. There are objectives to increase public communication, public document access, and public participation in decision making and partnership and collaboration. Council will more actively utilize the village website and other social media accounts to inform the community of pressing issues. This will include making important documents more accessible on the website, and involving the public more in capital improvement planning and funding methods.
The second additional goal is to promote a positive community image through marketing, public art, community promotion and creating more community events.
Council has deemed it important to more effectively communicate the positive accomplishments within the community as well as to establish a local artist gallery at the new village hall on Church St. highlighting local artwork.
The Downtown Developmental Authority (DDA) will also come into play as council vows to utilize the DDA’s branding media to promote the village as a premier location to live, work, shop, dine and enjoy outdoor activities.
The other seven goals’promote sound and prudent financial management; promote efficient and effective municipal operations and services; promote proper management of capital assets and infrastructure; promote quality recreation services and environmental stewardship; promote and protect public health, safety and welfare; promote beneficial and effective board, commission and staff relationships and professional development; and promote economic vitality’have a few new objectives as well.
For one, the council will explore new sources for revenue, whether that means establishing fees to use park athletic fields, pursuing more grants, or selling the police Humvee, among other short and long term funding plans.
The village is also in its third round of securing a near-$660,000 SAW Grant which would purchase a new GIS hardware and software system to build a comprehensive database for all village property.
Other objectives include preparing a plan for location and construction of boardwalks and/or boat docking at appropriate locations on Lake Orion, maintaining the lifeguard program at Green’s Park and possibly offering free open-pass days, and reevaluating the parks and recreation budget.
Traffic enforcement will also be evaluated, including reducing speeding along Flint, Florence, Elizabeth and Shadbolt streets with extra patrol or more radar enforcement.
Business attraction and retention is an important objective for council too, and they will work on renewing the business roundtable for increased merchant empowerment.?
Although there are many goals and objectives, the council will also be taking a closer look at interdepartmental essentials, identifying equipment, facility and technology resources that are still needed, as well as establishing an employee recognition program.
‘We’ve got a lot of needs in the community, and a lot of work ahead of us, but it’s an exciting time to live in Lake Orion,? McClary said.