Good Day to All:
Fall and all those colors are arriving and I do so enjoy this time of year. I am a flat lander and I need the four seasons to keep me on my best cycle. If we get too much of one season, I'm always out of sorts. Hopefully we can hold off the real "wintry" weather for a bit so that we can all enjoy what we are having now.
Just so you know . . . .
You might notice that the size of the text is a bit bigger. Well I had a friend comment that first of all, they "hate" reading on a computer. When I asked why, the response was, "the type is always too small, just like on your blog." And the term "blog" was emphasized in a kind of sarcastic way. Well I have taken care of that with a slight size adjustment in the text. So there and to my friend, hope you are happy and quit whining.
Safety . . . .
I broached this in the last post and wanted to follow up with just a few more comments or observations.
I'd mentioned that a member of the community had called and expressed her concern for the safety of bicyclists, pedestrians/runners and others who were traveling in those dusk hours. Her concerns are valid and we met yesterday to discuss this further. We had people from Good Samaritan Hospital, Kearney Park and Rec; Kearney Chamber of Commerce; Kearney Public Schools and a representative from the Traveler's Protective Association. We were brainstorming to develop ideas for a community program on this issue. To date, we have not had a huge number of accidents and I hope this trend continues. We do have "near miss" incidents and common sense tells us that the potential for a tragedy is there. If you agree that we as a community can and should develop a long term response to this, please contact me. You can reach me at the office at 308 233-5265 or via email at dlynch@kearneygov.org. You might even want to sign up here for us to create a dialogue on this issue. The more the merrier. If I get permission from the core group to mention them by name, I will in a future post and perhaps you can contact them to get involved.
Neighborhood Associations . . . .
I also mentioned in the last post about neighborhoods. I am always an advocate for neighbors knowing neighbors. It is not as easy as it might have been at one time, but it is still very important. It is important to you, your quality of life and your sense of security and well being.
We have several identified neighborhood associations that cover smaller geographic areas in Kearney. Most take their names from where they are: East College is as you might guess, just east of UNK. Pioneer is in and around the Pioneer Park and so on. We also have them in the Plaza neighborhood, the Kearney neighborhood which is really in the southeast part of Kearney. We also provide information on activities to the Centennial Neighborhood Association and the Kearney Housing Authority. These groups are more or less informal but act as a point of contact and unity in those areas. Having an association makes it much easier to address concerns or questions coming from a specific area and better and easier for everyone in getting information back out as well. If you want to see the monthly activities for these areas, go to the City of Kearney web site at http://www.cityofkearney.org/ and go to the Police page. You'll see a link for activity reports and you can peruse them there.
On that note, we need more associations. The far reaches of the community to the north both east and west, do not have these identified geographic groups and other areas of the city could use them as well. This is not for just police or law enforcement purposes. I know that the other City staff are also more than happy to work with these groups and the concerns of a neighborhood can vary greatly. Whether its speeding and parking or zoning and development, the neighborhood associations can be a huge benefit to our community and you and your neighbors. If you are interested, contact me and we'll work to help you get started.
Myself, the City Manager, the Code Enforcement officer and the Assistant City Manager met with the Pioneer Neighborhood Association just a little over a week ago. The topics involved parking, speeding but really focused on zoning issues and the development of or control of the numerous apartments and the associated issues. We had a great conversation and it is always good to see old friends. I know the end result of that meeting will be a continuing effort to address the concerns and improve the overall area.
As always, take the time to comment or sign up so that we can stay connected, involved and engaged. I always want to hear from you on the topics of the day and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Well on that note, I think I'll end this effort for the time being. May all of you have a terrific weekend and enjoy the time with family and friend.
GO HUSKERS!, GO LOPERS!, Aw heck, go everybody and do well!
Dan Lynch
No comments:
Post a Comment