The crowd for Jacksonville’s first ACE town hall meeting was small – only eight people if you discount the media and moderators – but each person present weighed in on some very large issues, from education to the city’s infrastructure and how to improve Jacksonville’s economic status.“This is a very dynamic, moving plan,” said Mindy Poe, Jacksonville’s ACE Coordinator of the five-year plan being discussed at the meetings.
Much of the hour-long meeting’s discussion was focused on education, primarily how the school board, citizens and the city can get on the same page in deciding what the schools need for future growth.
“I think we’re all stakeholders in our school system. Obviously it’s a mirror of our community,” said Poe. “We aren’t very good at celebrating our successes in our school system. As parents I think we all like to focus on things that could be fixed. Maybe this is the conversation that needs to be had and maybe this is one of the strategies that need to be addressed. It’s built in here, public forum – a place where, not a school board meeting, not a council meeting, but a coming together of community stakeholders in our schools along with city leaders to talk about our concerns and our plans and ask questions.”
The group also went through the objectives listed by various ACE committees in their five-year plan. In two particular areas, quality of life and infrastructure, many of the goals such as a tree ordinance and sidewalks for quality of life and a new 12-inch water main for infrastructure are already nearing completion.
“It’s like quality of life is ticking right along, so that may be a committee that needs to come back together sooner and move forward a little bit,” said Poe.
Dr. Derek Staples, pastor of First Baptist of Jacksonville, recommended using the city’s churches and organizations to do a survey of citizens.
“We have some large organizations in Jacksonville that a lot of people are involved in, Exchange Club an a lot of other things. Maybe we need to go to some of these circles. If we go to our churches, pull parents together, go to some of these organizations that are already strong and a lot of people are there, and ask if they would be willing to take a five-minute survey,” said Staples.
Poe said she planned to bring up the idea of surveys at the remaining three meetings. The second ACE town hall meeting was held last night at the Jacksonville Community Center. The News will cover that meeting, as well as tomorrow night’s meeting at West Side Baptist Church, in next week’s issue since the meeting occurred after press deadline. The final meeting will be held on May 13 at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
