85°F
weather icon Clear

City makes historic preservation top goal

Historic preservation will be more of a priority for the city in the future as it is one of the five goals adopted in the new strategic plan.

The plan, approved by City Council on Dec. 11, sets goals and plans for the city’s sustainability from 2020 through 2025. In addition to a greater focus on historic preservation, the city aims to achieve prudent financial stewardship, invest in infrastructure, manage growth and development, and sustain a high level of public safety services.

“This is a new goal that wasn’t in our last strategic plan — to include historic preservation,” said Councilwoman Peggy Leavitt.

The strategic plan also included ways the city would work to achieve its goals.

Regarding historic preservation, it will develop a mission statement based on state and national standards; develop a historic preservation plan; explore adding new historic preservation districts; amend existing codes to achieve historic preservation goals; identify financial incentives to promote historic preservation; promote economic development through historic preservation; develop an educational campaign about historic artifacts in Boulder City; and identify historic buildings to repurpose and reuse as appropriate.

“It doesn’t have to be a static document for five years,” said Mayor Rod Woodbury. “If we need to tweak it, we can tweak it. If we want to add some substrategies that we hadn’t thought of, we can add those. If one of the strategies proves not to be useful, we can get rid of that.”

In July, City Council hired Management Partners to help develop a strategic planning document. The firm sought input from community members and city employees through an online survey and received 347 community responses and 66 employee responses. It also conducted four public meetings and two community workshops.

“It was a rare opportunity for the participants not only come together to brainstorm but to share their suggestions and opinions based on their varied backgrounds and skill sets,” said Councilman Warren Harhay. “For many, it was the initial opportunity to inventory the opinions of the citizens and city employees but also to appreciate and incorporate Boulder City’s rich heritage into the new plan.”

“I was really pleased with how this went. … It was kind of remarkable to me how we had a consensus so quickly on getting these five goals out, ” Woodbury said.

City Manager Al Noyola said he will introduce an implementation plan to council by February.

“I am looking forward to the ‘Implementation Action Plan,’ which will establish benchmarks and strategies to help us actually implement the plan,” Leavitt said. “We will be able to track and measure the success in meeting our goals and can regularly report to the residents how we, as a community, are doing to achieve our goals.”

“It is important to ‘get on the same page’ and work as a team,” Harhay said. “Working as a team to implement this plan’s elements makes for a better and more efficient city government.”

Contact reporter Celia Shortt Goodyear at cgoodyear@bouldercityreview.com or at 702-586-9401. Follow her on Twitter @csgoodyear.

MOST READ
LISTEN TO THE TOP FIVE HERE
THE LATEST
Search for Central Market tenant continues

It’s been just short of two months since of a trio of friends, who are also longtime local property and business owners, made an announcement that piqued the interest of many in Boulder City.

About 83% of students feel safe at BC schools

Councilwoman Sherri Jorgensen was full of praise regarding a recent all-schools event at the high school.

Local aid groups get fed grant funding

The city has approved disbursement of almost $255,000 in federally-supplied community development block grant (CDBG) funds to three local entities: the Senior Center, Emergency Aid and Lend A Hand.

Planning commission approves Tract 350 variance request

Toll Brothers bettered their record in front of the planning commission to 2-1 last month when the developer got approval for a variance request related to the width of lots in Tract 350.

Kicking Off the New Year

Boulder City High School held its traditional back-to-school assembly this past Friday. School spirit and enthusiasm filled the gym as classes competed against one another to hold the coveted Spirit Stick. Aside from games, members of the fall sports teams performed to songs.

BC Electric’s Medo makes accusations about e-bike/scooter law

While the great majority of public comment surrounding the issues of unsafe usage — often by juveniles — of e-bikes and electric scooters was firmly on the side of the city “doing something,” not everyone is onboard.

So where does that RDA money come from?

It wasn’t all about donuts or whether super bright pink is an appropriate color for a building in the historic district. In addition to donuts it was about, well, dollars.

King to participate in essay contest

Last week, it was announced that fourth graders throughout the state are invited to participate in an essay contest, with the winner receiving the honor of lighting the 2025 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C.

Really better buy that helmet

With a couple of significant amendments, the city council voted unanimously to pass an ordinance regulating the use of e-bikes and e-scooters in Boulder City. The ordinance passed unanimously Tuesday and will take effect on Sept. 18.