Executive Assistant, Office of the Mayor, City Manager
I am grateful and honored to be a part of the community I live in and the people in it. Our area was hit hard during the pandemic and it has been a long road back. Our county had one of the highest transmission rates in the nation. Our city went on a 10-day lockdown in 2020, and our local businesses were significantly impacted as well.
There were so many hardships that so many people experienced, we could not even begin to name them all.
Yet, I will be forever amazed at the resiliency of our community. I witnessed businesses and organizations becoming creative in how to provide goods and services — members of the community reaching out to one another to provide food and supplies for those in need—local residents getting together to pick up trash and clean up our community.
When vaccinations became available, our county was in the top three for the highest vaccination rates in the state. Even now, you see people wearing their masks (even outside!) because it is not about just keeping yourself safe, but about protecting others in our community. Members like our elders, our children, and those that are immune compromised. Our community has proven that we care for each other.
Finally, I am in awe and proud of our leadership and my colleagues, the people that I work with day in and day out. Many innovative ways were created to meet the increase in services being requested from departments that had limited budgets and staff, to ensure service continuity. We had to learn new skills, create new ways of doing business and take on new projects to support the future of our community.
It is easy to become jaded with all that is going on in this world. We live in a great community and I do not want that to get lost, especially in this season of gratitude.
