Action for Kzoo
Kalamazoo is a city that is working hard everyday to be as good as its promise. It is truly a masterpiece in progress thanks to the many people – like you — who contribute to making this a better place. As Mayor I have worked with many great community partners to build a spirit of “the possible” to make this promise a reality. I sought great ideas and tried to learn from wherever things are being done well, whether that example was in Michigan, New York or California. I know that we can not take on every issue or provide resources to them all, but together we can bring greatness to our city. That is the spirit of “the possible” and the philosophy of how I will continue to help lead this city.
In this tough economy we know that jobs are vital to any success we garner as a city. We know that our children must be guided to success and to excellence, and that our neighborhoods must be safe and vibrant. I will continue to work hard on all of these as a leader, as a citizen and as a partner with you.
Please find below links to the initiatives, advocacy efforts and opportunities that I have been working on to enhance our community.
We have are becoming a model for the country on how to prepare children to be world ready, a community that is college bound.
We are the leaders here and have demonstrated another way to do whatever it takes for our children. We have made progress and improvements in our school system but we know that there is much, much more work to do for our youth. WE ARE COMMITTED TO THIS WORK! I AM COMMITTED TO THIS WORK!
We have learned from places like the Harlem Children’s Zone, what it means to do whatever it takes for the sake and success of our children. During our 3 day workshop in Harlem we engaged these experts, and learned about their outstanding work and spectacular results for these wonderful children. (need link to flickr with pics of our trip)
Working with our local community partners I contributed to establishing a small version of HCZ. There steering committee is working to improve and expand upon it.
I had the honor of being invited to participate in the Mayors’ Institute on City Design’s 43rd National Session in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in February. I was one of only six Mayors invited from all over the United States.
I used this opportunity to represent our city’s River West Project plan. It was an outstanding opportunity to engage these experts on design and urban development on our city and its future growth. They provided great information that will assist the city in moving this area forward as we, as a community, engage around our Master Planning project that kicked of in July, called PLAN Kalamazoo.
