The overall State of the City address given at the end of last month was of cooperation between the council members and city staff as well as with the members of the community.
Mayor Tom Adams said the thing he was most proud of was that within the last five years the council had managed infrastructure renewal without having to impose new taxes. That renewal is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.
“As I said five years ago, if we did not start to fix things right away, we would not be able to afford them later,” Adams said.
The mayor also praised the other members of the council and the city staff for working together on the renewal plan, also working with the community.
“We are staying the course,” he concluded. “We are managing it responsibly.”
Council Member Gloria Crudgington, a retired family therapist, said the real unifying factor among the members of the council is the fact that they care deeply about the city.
“We have a team,” Crudington said.
These same sentiments were echoed by the other council members as well, both during the event, on the night of the presentation, and later in personal interviews about the State of the City.
Mayor Adams presented the welcome and spoke later in interviews. Each council member presented a different aspect of the State of the City. Council Member Becky Shevlin gave a recap of the completed and proposed capital improvement projects while Mayor Pro Tem Larry Spicer reviewed the awards received by the city and those that it gave. He also gave an overview of the community involvement including events in the Old Town and the activities of the Monrovia Area Partnership (MAP). A special treat was provided in a clip of Spicer performing his version of “Old Town Road” at the Fourth of July celebration.
Crudgington thanked the community for their support over the last year as she battled tongue cancer and announced she was one week away from being cancer free for a year. On the night of this presentation she gave a recap of some of the special programs worked on during the year including The Legacy Project, the ordeal of coping with the clean water requirements placed on the city and how they proposed to meet those requirements, as well as how the city is coping with the issue of homelessness.
As always, Council Member Alex Blackburn looked at the economic growth within the city.
