Candidates discuss Florence’s strategic plan
Florence Reminder & Blade Tribune
Q. What is your view of the town’s current five-year Strategic Plan? Also, what is the most important part of Florence?
Johnie F. Mendoza: When you say 5 year strategic plan, all I want ro say is a quote from willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, “ I want it now!” The plan is just that a plan and its fine, but what are we doing today to make a change. Can Florence wait years. What can we be doing right now for Florence. All parts of Florence are very important but for our town to florist the downtown area needs the most attention.
Arthur “Snake” Neal: I feel the 5-year plan is a good goal for Florence. I think we need to step up our efforts if we are going to make this plan happen by the dead line of 2022. To accomplish these goals, especially in the areas of Community Vitality, Economic Prosperity, and Partnerships and Relationships; we need to reopen up our community facilities and start back up our community programming, of course safely but it must happen if we are going to move forward to reach the goals outlined in the Strategic Plan. People are the most important part of a community, that doesn’t need to be explained.
Bill Tanner: Strategic plans are considered as the key to achieving big long-term goals. But I wonder about their overall value in a world where such plans are outdated well before they reach completion. I’m concerned that a 5-year window may give the Town a false sense of security. It has been said that the sum of all human knowledge doubles about every 13 months. So, whatever you knew in September 2019, is now obsolete. One company, IBM, says that with increasing computer speeds, all of human knowledge will eventually double every 12 hours. Cities and towns, like Florence, must adapt to the future and begin a process that focuses more achievable shorter-term results. Strategic planning is important, as long as policymakers balance strategy with agility.
Vallarie Woolridge: The current Strategic Plan covers the issues that need to be addressed. The most important to me is the transportation piece. Beside maintaining safe roads, I would like to see the transportation partnership we have with Coolidge expanded to cover the entire Town. It would be great for residents in the Anthem neighborhoods to have access to our current available public transportation. All though we may be miles apart, Florence should be looked at as one Town, with different neighborhoods. Every part of Florence is important.
