Mayor's Community Update - 02/08/2019
Greetings! In 2018, the City announced that we were beginning work on a streetscape plan for our downtown. The intent behind this plan dates back to our 2006 Comprehensive Plan and was reaffirmed in our newly updated Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2018. Both documents recognize that redevelopment of our downtown by encouraging growth, reconstruction and technical assistance to business and property owners where viable is critical to our long-term economic success.
Since 2006, both the Business Improvement District and the Community Development Authority have led this charge and facilitated noticeable improvements to downtown facades, demonstrating how property/business owners and the city can work together to improve the downtown experience. Pictures tell the story and we’ll be posting some of those things online over the coming weeks to reinforce the great work these groups have done. The City also became a Connect Community in 2017. Connect Community programming is modeled after the success of the Main Street program which has been implemented across the country. Main Street programming points to the importance of improved design of the downtown business district to reinforce the commercial core of a city.
The street scape plan builds on the success of our façade program in the downtown by extending beautification strategies to the street and other public spaces. If you recall, in 2018 we conducted a citizen survey to understand what improvements people would like to see in our downtown. A number of opportunities were identified that result in completion of a streetscape plan that the Common Council adopted at their January 29, 2019 meeting. The first phase of the adopted plan calls for improvements to outdated and cracked/weathered street furnishings in the downtown. This includes things like trash receptacles, seating and flower pots. In January, city staff met with students from Waupun Area Senior High School who are participating in the Senior Democratic Seminar Class. This is a service learning class and students are now working with city staff to help implement this first phase of the street scape plan. We’re very excited about some of the ideas that students are coming up with and we will be working with them to implement those first phase ideas through the spring. So, stayed tuned and offer some words of encouragement to these students who are working hard to make needed improvements. We’ll share more on this exciting project in the near future so please stay tuned!
Around town, the Waupun Lion’s Club will host their annual Las Vegas night fundraiser on Saturday, February 9 at St. Joseph’s Parish Center, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Also Empty Bowls and the Waupun Animal Shelter’s “Chilly” Super are being hosted on the evening of Wednesday, February 13. More information can be found on the Waupun Festivals website. I hope to see you there!
