KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – As 2021 comes to an end, the city of Kalamazoo is looking back at what has been accomplished in the last year thanks to the Foundation for Excellence (FFE), and what they hope to get done in 2022.
Many of the improvements were only possible because of the FFE.
The projects were all devised to solve problems outlined by the Imagine Kalamazoo 2025 plan, which was put together after public meetings and surveys four years ago.
“[It’s] a rare opportunity to pause and celebrate what we’ve done, and look forward to what we have in the coming year,” City Planner Christina Anderson said.
Anderson adds that the city is ahead of pace on executing the 10-year plan.
“After four years, we are about sixty percent of the way there,” Anderson said.
In the past year they have built miles of new trails and sidewalks, made park improvements, helped dozens of small businesses, initiated new recycling and gardening programs, promoted infill housing and shared prosperity.
The city will expand those efforts in 2022.
Commissioner Chris Praedel says that unlike planning efforts in other cities, this one is being executed.
“They just take it, these giant binders of all the work they did, and they just stick it on a shelf,” Praedel said. “And at least in my two years I’ve been a City Commissioner, I have seen that that document is alive, it’s well, it’s studied, and it’s just really cool to see that.”
The largest single program funded by the FFE offsets a sizable reduction of the property taxes every homeowner and business pays in the city.
— Copy Written by John McNeil —
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