The Snyder Plan for Portage
Updated 10/25/07
Introduction
We deserve a Portage we can all be proud of. We deserve a safe and clean place to live, excellent schools, great neighborhoods, dependable citizen services, thriving businesses, abundant job opportunities, convenient quality health care, and a quality of life second to none.
Our City is among the largest, fastest growing communities in Indiana. That growth brings opportunities, but it also brings challenges we cannot ignore. Each day, we build a City not just for us but for our posterity.
Responsive and responsible City government is the cornerstone of Portage’s success. Success is the product of a plan. City government which simply reacts to opportunities and threats is one destined for disappointment & destruction.
Following is, “Portage’s Plan for Success.” It is a living, breathing document authored to provide a blueprint for the government our citizens deserve and one which I intend to deliver.
Citizen Safety
Citizen safety is priority # 1 in our City. Our law enforcement and firefighting forces must be the best trained, best equipped, and best prepared professionals. Our citizens must be absolutely certain that they are safe and secure. When disaster strikes and threatens our community, our response must be planned, organized, and swift. That can only occur if we make citizen safety our highest priority.
Our citizens must work respectfully in partnership with our law enforcement officers and firefighters to assure their personal safety and that of their fellow citizens. Through community watch programs, disaster preparedness programs, and citizen training & awareness initiatives, such a partnership is not only possible but critical to the strength of our community. Given our proximity to the Port of Indiana, major Interstates, the power grid, rail lines, oil pipelines and critical telecommunications infrastructure our community is vulnerable and the risk is real. We must recognize this fact, plan accordingly, and invest wisely to assure that we have adequately provided for any potential threat to our safety and security.
Taxation
Responsible government does not tax its citizens out of their homes! We must wean our dependence on property taxes. This will require exploring all means by which to shift our reliance on property taxes to other forms of revenue creation. This may include alternate forms of raising revenues, and investments, to strengthen our local economy. However, before we consider any alternative we must be absolutely certain that we are exacting value from every tax dollar. We must critically evaluate every system, every policy, every procedure, and every activity to assure that our government and the services it provides are as efficient and effective as possible. Our goal must be zero-waste government. This exercise must precede any tax restructuring initiative.
Economic Development
Economic development is not just about bringing new businesses to our City. It is also about providing quality living-wage jobs, it’s about quality residential development, it’s about robust infrastructure, it’s about environmental stewardship, and most important, it is about reconciling competing interests fairly, openly and equitably. WE must decide what we want our City to become; WE must agree how our City will grow. Our City will grow and change just as the world around us is constantly growing and changing.
Our greatest economic development opportunities will be realized in our Ameriplex and Route 6 corridors. However, that development must not diminish our resolve to revitalize our U.S. 20 corridor while realizing Mayor Olson’s vision for a thriving City Center on Central Avenue.
Consequences and concerns arising from our residential rate of growth cannot be ignored. Residential growth represents our greatest strength, but it also presents our greatest threat. Uncontrolled residential growth pressures our infrastructure, our citizen safety services, our civil services, our utilities, our school resources, while threatening to drive up property taxes to the point that many of our citizens may no longer be able to afford to live in Portage any longer. It is unthinkable to permit such a catastrophe to occur. Conversely, we cannot afford to turn those away who choose to make Portage their home, as all of us once chose. New citizens contribute to the life blood of our community. Their time, talents, and treasure help to assure Portage’s present and future success. We are challenged to strike a balance and we must confront that challenge; less as a threat and more as an opportunity. As a City, Portage is in an enviable position.
We must demonstrate respect for those already here who have built our great community, respect for those who have chosen to retire in our community on fixed incomes, respect for our young families toiling to realize their American dream in our City, respect for those who own property and seek to enhance it, respect for those who choose to farm our rich soil, respect for those arriving who appreciate the beautiful City we have created and wish to contribute to our success as they make Portage their home.
Our greatest security can be found in our citizens. Our planning commission, our board of zoning appeals and our building department must be comprised of caring, sensitive, dedicated, responsible citizens & civil servants who mirror the faces and the interests of our citizens. These citizens and servants must be chosen carefully and empowered to protect our land, preserve our values, and cradle our vision of Portage’s future. While rules, regulations, standards, and enforcement are critical to our success, ultimately our citizens appointed to evaluate and approve development & growth are our first, last and best defense. We must provide them the proper tools and encourage them to constantly explore beyond our borders in search of best practices and effective models.
Citizen Services
Our City must be healthy and clean. This is only possible if our civil servants have the resources necessary to do the job. The key to success is qualified, courteous, compassionate workers who understand that our citizens are our customers. We need strong, dedicated civil servants who have the capacity, the desire, and the tools, to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
Our streets & sidewalks must be well maintained and free of litter or debris. We must establish and support a program to resurface our streets and repair our sidewalks on a timely and regular basis.
Our utilities must be safe & reliable. We must foster a strong working relationship between representatives from all the utilities serving our City – both public and private - to assure the safe delivery of energy, water, sewer, gas, and telecommunications to our citizens. Such a relationship, such a level of performance and cooperation is impossible without fully implementing a graphical information system (GIS) in our City. A GIS would also enhance and support our citizen safety, our building & planning, and our economic development activities.
Our parks must be safe, well maintained, and citizen-friendly. The way to assure consistent quality is to work closely with our park board to support, “Portage Parks Plan for Success” and provide the resources necessary to implementing that plan. This will include a plan for our new lakefront park once it is completed.
Refuse collection must be prompt, efficient and reliable. We must never privatize the services. However, our recycling efforts must a model & the envy of all our neighbors. This too requires not only a plan, but a concerted effort to educate & inform our citizens of the price of NOT recycling – both to our environment and our pocketbooks.
Our City hall and all of our citizen service facilities must be clean, safe, convenient, accessible, and open to our citizens.
Advanced Citizenship
A community will struggle to survive and cannot thrive without the energy and determination of an engaged citizenry.
Your government should provide its citizens with a wide variety of means and a host of opportunities to communicate their concerns and contribute their time & talents to Portage’s success. It is imperative that each and every department, board, and office in our City routinely and regularly assemble citizen advisory groups, conduct citizen surveys, and invest in any reasonable means to communicate with our citizens beyond scheduled public meetings. The only way government can be of, by and for the people is if the people are actively engaged in both its creation and administration. Community events, web site, cable television shows, pod casts, newsletters, radio & newspaper advertisement, neighborhood meetings, and roundtable discussion groups are excellent examples of methods we need to embrace and expand to keep our citizens informed and engaged. No citizen should ever be unpleasantly surprised by what their government has done to them, and should be celebrating what their government is doing with them and for them.
Health Care Services
Our City is the largest in Porter County and among the largest in NW Indiana, yet we are forced to travel beyond our borders for comprehensive health care and emergency services. This is entirely unacceptable. We must embrace a plan to attract and secure a quality health care provider willing to establish a presence and invest in our community. We must aggressively pursue a plan to locate our new County hospital in our City.
A Code of Ethics
The integrity of our elected officials must be above reproach. Our citizens must never doubt the fact that their interests and those of their City are first and foremost. Open, transparent, inclusive government must be the highest priority. Our City must not only adopt an ethics ordinance, we must enthusiastically embrace the efforts of our human resource director to enforce it.
