Richmond is a little town on the verge of becoming a thriving community that offers something for everyone. We have long been a small bedroom community or a place to quietly retire. While this is good, a city must grow in order to continue offering even the basic services. It is impossible for municipalities to remain the same and survive. A well known statistic among city governments is if you don’t continue to grow and keep up with changing times, the city will be passed up by other towns with more to offer. Eventually, that city will dry up and die. It’s not that we need to be the next Columbia or Springfield, but we can learn from their experience and develop Richmond to what fits our needs. Richmond should be a well-rounded community that has something to offer all ages and social groups. This article will be the first of several which will outline the State of the City.
City of Richmond employees, committees and elected officials are working diligently to research, implement and follow up on an idea that is not specific to any one person or group, but rather lends itself to steadily bringing Richmond to a point of serenity and stability.
We know that we will never please everyone all the time, but we do want to have something to offer everyone. This is a huge undertaking and a very long process with many challenges. First, we must eliminate several emergency situations within our infrastructure. Second, trying to get any group of people to agree to a single best course of action is practically impossible. Third, by the very nature of the governing process, nothing happens fast. With these and many other unforeseen situations along the way, achieving our goal will be long and tedious.
I started serving the City of Richmond almost six years ago. I remember some of the problems we faced at that time. Some have been corrected but some still exist today. One issue that existed then and now involves major concerns with infrastructure. Water and sewer systems are in need of an upgrade. Storm water runoff is nothing short of a disaster in many places throughout the town when it rains. Six years ago, city equipment was in horrible shape. Public works was spending lots of money just to try and keep outdated equipment running so they could work. The Police Department was using cars that would hardly pass inspection, were less reliable and not suitable for pursuit. The Fire Department had to house equipment outside and offsite because of a firehouse that was greatly undersized. City Hall itself was nearly overridden with termites. A lot of money had been spent on plans and engineering only to have those plans sit on a desk because no more money existed for construction or other action to be taken.
The simple solution to everything was to responsibly spend the taxpayers’ money to buy equipment, implement plans and hire the necessary people to fix these problems. That’s exactly what we started. It was never a question whether or not these problems needed fixing, but the situation is our problems are bigger than our budget. Our efforts only scratched the surface. We still had much to accomplish but the debt began building. This caused our strategy to change – to find a way to do more with less. We rallied the department heads and asked them to tighten their belts and give us a bare minimum budget, while still providing good services. I have to say at this point, we have an incredible staff. They stuck with a bare bone budget, continued to provide services and found additional ways to save money. The result: our over $400,000 deficit from two years ago will be nearly – if not completely – erased by September of this year!
The most amazing aspect of this accomplishment is all the city’s projects that have been completed at the same time: City Hall – done. Police Department – done. Fire Station – done. Downtown revitalization looks fantastic and was done under budget. Wellington Street is the best street in town and was also completed under budget. Crispin Street Bridge – done. Street overlays – more in two years than in the previous 10.
Thanks to a lot of hard work, the city’s staff and council have reduced rainwater flows to the south plant by 300,000 gallons per day during rainstorms. Engineers had recently proposed spending $12 million to ACCOMMODATE RAINFALL. We still have work to do, but so far we’ve spent less than $50,000. City Administrator Rick Childers, using common sense and good project management skills, will implement a solution to the flooding problem in Ward 2 later this month. This problem has plagued that area for over 10 years. This project’s total cost including engineering, materials and labor should come in about $45,000.
In truth, the combination of these accomplishments has laid the foundation for real prosperity in Richmond. The situation in Richmond is actually pretty good and getting better everyday. I hope you can view your city government as the problem-solvers they’ve become over the past few years, helping Richmond become a thriving community one step at a time.
Look for the next installment of my State of the City in the near future.
Thank you,
LANCE GREEN
MAYOR