Tonight the Riverdale Police sponsored a block party for our surrounding neighborhood. They brought pizza and breadsticks for everyone and invited the fire department who brought a fire truck and an ambulance.  My daughter enjoyed looking them over.

The police officers are each assigned specific neighborhoods throughout the city and they used this opportunity to get to know the residents and talk about any concerns we may have that they could help with.  Fire Chief Bodily offered some cautious advice about the hot dry weather and danger with fireworks. Mayor Burrows was there too.

Our neighborhood’s assigned officers are Lynn Wright and Rusty Bingham.  I was glad to meet them and to see some of the neighbors come out and be supportive of them too.

This was also a great chance to teach my 3 1/2 year old daughter about police officers, firemen and paramedics, and that they are friendly and their job is to help people in need. I’m proud to live in a city with proactive public safety who are willing to reach out to the residents.

We are fortunate to have a thriving business environment in Riverdale.  The ability to go find just about anything you could need, so close to home is very convenient.  And the tax revenue generated by our business is critical to manage the core services and nice amenities we residents (and visitors) enjoy.

In the past, Riverdale’s sales tax revenue came under attack in the Utah State Legislature.  State lawmakers decided it would be fairest to re-distribute a large portion of Riverdale’s sales tax revenue to surrounding communities with higher residential populations and less commercial activity.

With the city being responsible to provide the infrastructure, as well as police and fire protection for the 40,000+ daily commuters, shoppers and business employees, these circumstances loomed large.

Our city leaders prepared for the unwelcome situation by enacting an action plan that would continually assess priorities and control expenditures based on the local economic climate at any given time.  And a few years after that the city lobbied for and received the right to receive a “city-option” sales tax, in large part to help our small resident population cover the cost of supporting a big daytime population.  City staff recently lobbied the state again for an extension on this city-option tax and it was granted through the year 2030.

The action plan, which encouraged staff to prioritize and work leaner, also helped by putting the city in a very stable financial position when the recession hit.  Already scaled back, Riverdale’s economic adjustment has been much less severe than many other government entities who have had to take on more debt, cut employee benefits, layoff employees, raise fees and cut services to citizens and more.

This is a great example of the type of leadership that I feel is very important to strive to retain as key leaders in the community change. This pro-active, strategic, clever, constantly self-assessing and adjusting style of our city officials has paid off very well for our citizens.  Even in very uncertain economic times. This is the type of positive momentum I want to help maintain as a city counselor.