David Condon, Mayor, No Phone Number Available
Thursday, January 30, 2014 at 5:50 p.m.
Spokane is a safer, stronger and smarter community today than it was a year ago. And it will be an even safer, stronger and smarter Spokane tomorrow.
It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been more than a year already since we began our work to define Vision 2020. We talked then about the importance of driving toward key community priorities. I called upon all of you and many others to help me identify our list and we went to work aligning the City’s resources to our community’s needs.
Over the past year, I’ve been reminded many times of the value of that alignment. I don’t mean just the alignment of our investments to your top priorities. I’m talking about community-wide alignment.
As we talked about what was important to us as a community, we saw that although our age, backgrounds and stories of what brought us to Spokane may differ, a lot of us had chosen to stay for the same reasons.
Ultimately it’s our community’s unparalleled offerings in living, learning and leisure that draw and keep great citizens here. It’s downtown proximity to neighborhoods, strong community schools, work/life balance, and recreational opportunities for all seasons. It’s a quality of life you cannot duplicate.
I am often reminded of Astronaut Jim Lovell and his statement about the Apollo 13 mission. Lovell said:
“From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. And it’s not a miracle, we just decided to go.”
Last fall, my team prepared a budget that addressed the priorities of this community, and did it affordably. I’m very proud of that budget and I’m even more impressed by the way we got there. My leadership team asked the right questions, engaged many citizens, pursued the right answers, and worked together across previously siloed operations to achieve the logical results that our citizens deserved.
This way of doing business, once unthinkable, has become the norm. You gave us direction 12 months ago, affirmed the priorities for this community, and we went to work. It wasn’t rocket science. It was simply a team of people you entrusted to work for you doing the work you asked to be done. We call that smart government.
During this process our eyes have been opened to the opportunities we have as a community. As we’ve invested in your priorities, we’ve found great partners in the community ready to do the same, and in some cases, already doing it.
So, we went to work:
These are the goals you and the rest of the community defined for us. These are things we can all do – these are things we must do.
Read the full State of the City speech (PDF 192 KB). Watch the entire State of the City Address below.
Offer feedback or get involved via Vision2020@spokanecity.org.
Download the 2014 Annual Report (PDF 1.2 MB)
