Several accomplishments during 2013 in Jackson

After celebrating a wonderful Christmas with my family and friends, this is a good time for reflection. When our family gets together, we always revisit many tales of Christmases past. While the meals we share are fantastic, the family visiting is my favorite part of Christmas.

This is also a good time for reflection by our city staff and employees as each city department is asked to list major accomplishments for the past year. As we prepare that report, there are many highlights.

A number of commercial projects were completed or were in progress in 2013. Jackson Villa Apartments were totally remodeled; a new Family Dollar store was constructed; Wings, Etc. was remodeled and occupies the former strip mall at 2003 E. Jackson Blvd. Projects under construction include Liberty Utilities regional headquarters, a new elementary school on North Lacey Street, a new gymnastics/fitness facility on Old Orchard Road and a new Casey's General Store on West Jackson Boulevard.

After a yearlong study of the zoning code by the planning and zoning commission and board of aldermen, a large number of revisions were completed throughout the Chapter. We now have an A-1 Agricultural District and additional controls on commercial construction next to residential construction, and a multitude of smaller changes. The DREAM Initiative project is nearing completion, and we will receive the strategic plan for going forward with Uptown development.

City administrator Jim Roach, public works director Rodney Bollinger, building and planning superintendent Janet Sanders, director of electric utilities Don Schuette, staff engineer Erica Bogenpohl and parks director Shane Anderson worked to develop our first Parks Master Plan. This PMP will be a guideline for future park expansion and improvements. It is scheduled to be presented to the park board and board of aldermen for their input and approval.

After review and testing of automated meter reading in several areas in the city, we have adopted the automated meter reading program. This program is being used in part of the city and will be added to other sections of the city over the next three years. This has increased the efficiency and timeliness of the utility billing process.

In the collector's department, employees handle a high volume of bill payments in person, by mail, at the drive-through window, in the night deposit, by credit cards online, and now accept payment electronically through bank pay, and they still do automatic withdrawal.

This year that department generated more than 3,400 work orders for people moving into the city to hook up to electricity; people moving out of the city to discontinue electric service; and people moving from one address to another address inside the city.

Since this only includes the accomplishments of several departments, I will continue giving you more information on our accomplishments in future columns, but I do want to express appreciation to all our departments for their input -- and especially to public works customer service representative Tiffany Meehan for editing, organizing and preparing the final copy of our Annual Accomplishments Report.

Barbara Lohr is the mayor of Jackson.