The Holbrook City Council met on April 17, to begin discussion on a strategic plan for the city. All councilmembers were present as well as Mayor Bobby Tyler. Presenting at the meeting were City Manager Randy Sullivan, Community Development Coordinator Kathleen Smith and facilitator Jason Foutz.
The meeting was an overview of what the council envisions for the city in the immediate future through the next 10 years. The two dominant themes that emerged over the course of the two-hour meeting was beautification and code enforcement. Councilman Tim Dixon came prepared with a Power Point presentation that depicted the areas in the community that he felt needed improvement and slides of other cities and their amenities that he believed could also be created in Holbrook.
Dixon said that he would like to see the dilapidated buildings addressed and the three areas in town that house salvage vehicles addressed according to city ordinance in order to have old cars removed along the roadways. He also asked for better marketing with billboards along the interstate.
“We have a great location, great weather, great people. We have 200-mile views and the best sunsets in the world. We need to market that,” said Dixon.
“I’d like to see our main corridors beautified,” stated Vice Mayor Wade Carlisle. Councilwoman Francie Payne added that she would like to see city code enforced. She also stated that she would like to see more job opportunities. The council all agreed that they would like to see the heavy industrial park located at the south end of the city developed.
The council also talked about Arizona Department of Transportation grants that could help with beautification and seeking grants for creating walking paths, green belts and a way to access the golf course without going on Interstate 40 once the pond is engineered at the west end of town.
Foutz reported that regarding potential business development there has been progress made on the broadband expansion. “There was a $60 million grant that got funded. Red Rock Communication has it and it’s supposed to connect us to Payson and then from Show Low on up to Holbrook.” He added that Northland Pioneer College is working with Northern Arizona University to expand the broadband from Flagstaff to Holbrook.
Sullivan added that Red Rock Communication is throwing in additional optics fiber pairs for use by potential private industry in the future.
Also addressed was the need to change ordinances for specific areas of town such as a historic west district and a Route 66 district where commercial businesses developed would have parameters required for signage and exterior appearance.
Smith informed the council that she would use all the information provided at the meeting and have a working document available at the April 24 council meeting for the council to review.
Sullivan added, “The next several meetings we will have the strategic plan and the budget discussions. With that we will come up with a comprehensive document that you can vote on and that will be our direction going into the budget discussions. Once that budget is set I’d like to start doing quarterly reports on each item of the strategic plan.”
