South DSM News

The Norwalk City Council recently received an update on their Vision 2028 plan.

"So this past year we did a goal-setting session with a stronger emphasis on action planning," Norwalk Mayor Tom Phillips said in the Jan. 5 council meeting. "This just means our goals were just a little bit more focused than before. This process involved department heads and councils. What was most interesting was how well our thoughts aligned with staff. It's a good sign that we are all communicating well and we're attentive to what Norwalk needs. Once we completed the goal-setting, I started to think of how our updated goals were strongly correlated with our Vision 2028 goals that was done back in 2018. So I sat down with Luke, our City manager, and asked that he find a way to communicate this correlation. And from there, the City manager and clerk have worked to organize our vision and then worked with staff to assign tasks associated with each goal."

After the mayor opened up the discussion, the City Council received a presentation from City manager Luke Nelson explaining how it started with the City’s in-depth goal-planning session in 2022. Nelson thanked and recognized the elected officials who have championed certain goals and projects over the past year; including the rec center, economic development, the Main Street project, and the Founder’s district. He noted that he has rarely seen non-staff so involved in those types of projects.  

The first quarterly goal was to increase quality jobs, both in the community and within City Hall. The City of Norwalk has added 60 new quality jobs in the community over the past three years and aims for 80 new jobs during 2023-2024. The second goal was tight-knit friendly neighborhoods—bringing people together through fun community activities and events, parades and city outreach. They hope to host a city expo, which they will be diving deeper into this year.

One of their large physical projects is to build a full-service recreation complex in the community, with a projected timeline of breaking ground in the spring of 2023. The next big goal is the trails system. The City is working on constructing trail connections along Elm Avenue and making more paths that reflect their parks and land acquisitions (186 acres since 2018). The City has added almost 2.5 miles of trails in the past three years and will add another 0.8 miles in the fiscal year of 2023. The City also hopes to streamline their animal management using an online system for licensing and permitting in the city.

Another of the final goals is to be known as the safest city in Iowa. The City has been working with its police department to determine how to measure progress and how it compares to other municipalities, but they have also included Parks and Recreation and the library as well as Public Works to incorporate their responsibilities.