Dear Friends,

This is a great time to live in Waco!

From the heart of City Hall at Heritage Square, crossing to Elm Street and moving up and down the Brazos River Corridor...the Community’s Vision is rapidly becoming Reality.  

Mobility Planning for I35, trolley and rail continues, paralleling TxDOT’s decision to invest over three million in completing the I35 master planning between North and South Loop 340, focusing first on the heart of I35, from MLK to 5th Street where 100,000 vehicles a day drive over the I35 Brazos River bridge.

Clifton and Betsy Robinson’s lead gift of Robert Summers’ “Branding of the Brazos” at the Suspension Bridge, has merged history, sculpture, tourism, and cultural arts, and leveraged partnership building. The bronze sculptures include a 1  1/2 times life size cowboy on horseback, with the first of 27 long horn cows  to be accompanied by two additional mounted cowboys, that will eventually grace the Suspension Bridge park grounds. Already there are touring school children and adults seen taking pictures on and in front of the handsome bronze sculptures. What vision, what a gift to this community!

Moving upstream to the Waco Mammoth Site, construction continues and an opening is anticipated to be held this fall. The Baylor, Waco and community donor partnerships, further supported by Congressman Edwards  has resulted in a National Parks recommendation and now both Senate and House Bills in Washington (sponsored by Sen. Cornyn, Sen. Hutchison, and Rep. Edwards) to approve the NPS recommendation to include the Waco Mammoth Dig as a National Park Monument! This represents a 35 year Vision shared by past and present community leaders that is finally becoming Our Reality. To be able to share this national treasure with world-wide visitors is an extraordinary opportunity that will have a significant impact on science research and education, as well as our economy, our cultural offerings and thus our citizens’ quality of life.

Moving downstream to the nationally recognized Cameron Park Zoo, the new Asian Forest Exhibit that includes the very unusual Orangutans and Komodo Dragons is also slated to open this fall. This addition to the Zoo offerings, in keeping with the zoo’s natural habitat environment, is projected to have strong appeal to youth, both from within and outside our community. Zoo attendance was unusually strong in 2008 and this exhibit promises an even broader public appeal.

In 2007, the citizens of Waco confidently stepped forward to approve a bond election (the first in 40 years) to invest in upgrades to City’s capacity to provide basic and enhanced quality of life services. With funds secured at a very favorable rate, bond projects are already underway.  Police and fire facilities will increase safety, Texas Ranger Hall of Fame renovations will provide a new river view for Knox Hall, library renovations will significantly expand educational opportunities, the Convention Center renovations will expand tourism, and park improvements will add another dimension to both tourism and area citizens’ quality of life. The 10 construction projects already in progress in Cameron Park will be finished in time for the community’s Cameron Park Centennial Celebration set to commence May 1, 2010.

Another key work in progress is the National Park Service Rivers, Trails, Conservation Assistance (RTCA grant) to produce a planning document that is nearing completion. This planning has afforded the city another opportunity to collaborate with the NPS, Baylor, MCC and community groups’ to establish river development guidelines designed to protect citizen access to the rivers and preservation of the corridor’s natural beauty, environmental health, significant historic sites and recreational assets, along both the Bosque and Brazos Rivers from the dam to the confluence of rivers and downstream beyond the Weir Dam. This RTCA planning will be useful in crafting the Greater Downtown and River Corridor Master Plan for land development. The City of Waco is currently partnering with the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, Cooper Foundation, Waco Business League and other projected partners in engaging citizens to plan for a high density greater downtown urban environment, roughly defined as the Quinn Campus to 18th and LaSalle to Waco Drive. Following completion of the agreement with a Portland Oregon consulting firm, community meetings will begin a new wave of community engagement in visioning and implementing our shared future to Strengthen the Heart of our Community.

Probably the most important of all our work to build and sustain a great city is the establishment of the Greater Waco Community Education Alliance. In keeping with our practice of identifying and engaging stakeholders to address our community’s major challenges, it became clear that there is broad-based community commitment to increase the overall level of education and to develop the understanding that the entire community shares the responsibility for educating every citizen. Following two years of establishing informal and formal partnership with Baylor, MCC, TSTC, Cooper, Waco and Rapoport Foundations, area ISD leadership, chambers, businesses, media and other area key stakeholder work groups, we conducted core research, set clear goals, assessed area resources and have now conducted the first of five annual Education Summits last November. Almost 700 citizen leaders attended. The Education Summit Report has been published with copies available in the City Secretary’s office, any one of the three Chambers or at the CORD building located at 601 Lake Air Drive. Our 2009 Education Summit will be November 18-20 at the Convention Center. Mark your calendars now.

The public-private collaboration and partnership building has made possible the rapid development in Downtown Waco on Heritage Square. Also to be celebrated are the Austin Lofts now open, Student Housing nearing completion and PID Overlay District Urban Design Standards before the Council. The influence of green and beauty on the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce Building and the historic Roosevelt Hotel’s handsome transformation to custom designed office headquarters can be seen. The quality of design and building construction surrounding the Heritage Square garden-like environment is breathtaking.

And speaking of breath-taking views for the over 60,000 vehicles traveling north on I35, the newly opened Hillcrest Hospital in Legend’s Crossing has provided an extraordinary gateway to Waco from the south, while simultaneously expanding quality of health care services for the area that effectively compliments Providence Health Care System, another source of community pride. Hillcrest’s Scott and White partnership is also opening the possibility of expanded medical research and education opportunities. Our citizens particularly appreciate Providence’s contributions and work with Mercy Housing that resulted in the Brook Oaks Senior Residences that grace the former Providence Campus on Colcord.  Additionally, in its transition, Hillcrest is maintaining some of its existing services and developing new services in their Herring Avenue Campus, collaborating with MCC to utilize facilities for medical labs. The City and the neighborhood will work together to ensure a campus environment that will enhance their property values and area quality of life.

Other significant news includes the Veterans Administration Hospital’s groundbreaking of the first of the $49,000,000 renovations of the beautiful historically significant buildings to accommodate expanded mental health services, blind rehab, research and other services associated with the VA Mental Health Care Center of Excellence, that has resulted in well over 800 employees (formerly down to under 200) and still building the medical and support service staff.

No list of “what’s happening” can go without including the extraordinary development following MCC’s bond election resulting in MCC’s newly opened Dennis F. Michaelis Academic Center and their recent announcement of a partnership with Texas Tech University to add to offerings through the University Center at MCC.  Additionally, MCC construction continues on the Emergency Services Education Center to house several law enforcement training academies. This City-MCC partnership will yield significant outcomes for our region for years to come.

Rapidly becoming the area standard for “how our community works” is a style of non-traditional partnership building, respect for and integration of a broad range of area views and resources that is surprising and encouraging us all. As we focus on implementing the priorities identified and recorded in 2005 in the Community Visioning Project, a document that continues to guide and inform, I am reminded of our debt to our late Mayor Mae Jackson. For her original act of forming a broad-based and dedicated steering committee including leaders from Baylor to LaVega ISD, persons who set the process in motion, we can continue to be grateful.

Virginia DuPuy