Emporia city commissioners narrowed down and prioritized their goals for the upcoming year during their second goal-setting session at the Water Treatment Plant Monday night.
Commissioners held their first goal-setting session two weeks ago, during which they discussed ideas and hopes for Emporia’s future and how they could work toward seeing those hopes fulfilled. The meetings will provide a framework for city staff to organize upcoming agendas to reflect the goals the commission deems to be high priorities.
The commission will officially adopt the goals at an upcoming action session.
One of the goals identified as high priority was property maintenance — improving and maintaining the safety and aesthetics of area housing. Fred Neuer, a committee chairman of Building Futures in charge of enhancing Emporia’s housing, came to the meeting to speak to the commission about creating a citizens review board to help the city uphold its ordinances and improve housing quality.
“We have a lot of good people in this community who are willing to say, ‘We need to step up and try to help improve our housing stock,’” Neuer said.
Antonia and Stanford Felix, who also were at the meeting, have been instrumental in getting the neighborhood project going, Neuer said, and deserve the credit for getting the idea going.
Neuer said the point of a city-appointed citizens review board would be to identify problems with housing in the area and figure how to improve them.
“... We’d like to do it with a citizens review group,” Neuer said, “peers, people of that neighborhood or area who will say, ‘This particular property is not up to the ordinances that are already on the books.’”
Neuer mentioned the uproar that was caused when the city was looking into a licensing requirement for landlords.
“I think the approach there might have been the problem,” Neuer said, “and anytime that you bring government up as the solution, that sometimes causes problems.”
“We’re not inventing new laws because we’re prisses who like picket fences,” Antonia Felix said. “We’re just trying to get the trash out of the front yards and maybe fix up some steps that kids are around and hazardous vehicles ... These things are very well-established as illegal and it would play a huge role in bringing up the pride of the entire city. ...”
Commissioners said a pilot program for such a board might be worth pursuing.
Other goals deemed to be high priority:
• City budget and finances
• City personnel
• Economic development
• Outdoor warning sirens
Each of these, along with other, lower-priority goals, will be fleshed out with details, and city staff will look at ways the commission can pursue the goals as the year progresses. Commissioners will be discussing the city’s warning sirens at their upcoming study session at 8 a.m Wednesday morning.