As we move further into the holiday season, we cannot be more grateful for what we, as a community, have been able to accomplish over the last two years. At the beginning of 2021, The Town of Rutherfordton published our 2021 Action Plan after surveying the community, our department heads, Mayor, and Council. This plan was robust with goals and dreams of what we wanted to accomplish for our Town.
This plan helped guide Town Staff in creating our yearly budgets, to ensure that we are committing funds to the projects that we want to push forward. The goals of the plan are printed and hung in our offices and meeting rooms to remind us of what we are here to do. This document does not simply live on a shelf, it is a living-breathing document that guides our decisions every single day.
This plan had seemingly difficult goals and objectives to accomplish, but our Town staff and councilmembers have worked tirelessly to better our community and surpass those goals. It will take another video to list the all of the projects that we’ve been able to complete over the last two years, but just to name a few:
- the new A/V equipment that has helped make our council meetings more accessible for the public.
- Rutherfordton Police Department’s commitment to the community through their Shop with a Cop Program and new RIDES program.
- Ruff’ton Roots Community Garden’s donation numbers that have tripled in just ONE year.
- Norris Public Library’s increased outreach, programming, and diversity in collections
- We have obtained land to build our second fire station in the rural district
- We have made strides in housing efforts with the Redevelopment Commission and with partnerships with the Dogwood Health Trust and the Gateway Foundation
- and, the community events like Rutherfordton Food Art & Brew or our Movies in the Park.
We are now ready to begin crafting the 2023 Action Plan, complete with new goals and dreams for our community to grow into over the next two years. We want our entire town to take a survey that assess what we’re doing well, what needs improvement, and what YOUR dreams are for our community. The sky is the limit- well our town limits are, but please dream big and don’t hold anything back. Your feedback is extremely valuable and is crucial in creating this plan.
You can access the survey by visiting https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZZGQDG6 or picking up a paper copy in Town Hall or Norris Public Library. This survey will be open until the end of the year, so please make time during the holidays to fill out this survey. Please encourage your family and friends to fill out the survey and help us make our goals for the next two years.