Accountability Team Needs You!

January 2, 2012

Being mayor is not about politics, it’s about our families and especially the legacy we leave to our children.  Alexandria is a great place to raise our families.  But, we must work hard to leave the right investments in place.  We must make careful, thoughtful decisions regarding our public investments, and most of all ensure we provide a safe environment for family and businesses to flourish.  We must also ensure basic services occur without undue interruption.

That’s the reasoning undergirding SPARC.  That’s the basis for our approach.

Over five years ago, we put forth a campaign of ideas and plans for making those ideas reality.  Some of you were part of that most diverse and forward-looking group of citizens: our transition team.

We are forging a new assessment team to look at the original transition charges and evaluate and recommend new courses of action.

Please click the 2012 Plan of Work on the button next door to review an outline of proposed activity.  (The 2011 Plan will be updated immediately to remove accomplished goals and add new ones.)

An Executive Accountability Team willoversee our new plan of work.

There are important ideas and opportunities with the advent of new economic development partners, enriched collaboration with existing partners, and other initiatives around our region.

Economic development, particularly as a result of the recent economic recession, can be a game of attrition: he who can—through industry and resource or serendipity—wait it out, may just win.  Several promising plans were tabled from October of 2008 to present because of larger economic issues, but in Alexandria, we must continue to act with a sense ofurgency, but in a spirit of shared optimism and cooperation.  Alexandria and Pineville have been in a period of unprecedented growth.  Major employers, like Union Tank Car, now call Alexandria home, and other major industries, like Martco, St. Francis Cabrini Hospital, Cleco, and Rapides General, are making significant investments in our community. Alexandria’s new airport terminal will certainly facilitate the sustainability of this growth, and the England Economic Industrial Development District is a jewel that will facilitate some even greater growth.

Planned expansions on 28-West and Highway 1 will create new sections of Alexandria—new neighborhoods, new banks, new roads, new restaurants. It is critical that Alexandria proactively respond to this growth.  We need to ensure these new sections of Alexandria work seamlessly and cohesively with the rest of the city. 

We need to continue to work together to avoid what I call “little Alexandrias.”  But, that work takes a community spirit, and that spirit in no small part begins at City Hall.  When stakeholders in officialdom take the position about what is best only through the lens of their particular constituency, Alexandria suffers.  As a community, we need to support each other’s businesses, buy local when at all possible, and think smart about what partnerships can be developed with fellow entrepreneurs.   

Law enforcement is always a place ripe for your participation, and our progressive new Chief of Police welcomes participation by the community.

Infrastructure needs continue to be criticalthroughout the region, and a regional approach to address of need along with evidence-based specific addresses in the City are paramount.

New partnering ideas with community serviceswill be the hallmark of Alexandria’s (and other cities’) arts and cultural funding and sharing of resources.  Better interfacing with schools and certified community advocates and nongovernmental support organizations will be central to a unified and effective community plan to enrich the lives of children, our overall health, and community activities.  We have tremendous resources in Alexandria—like the Rapides Foundation.  We need to support those players and better utilize what they offer with accountability and novelty.

The accountability team areas of interest and spheres of organization are:

QUALITY OF LIFE, WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT &COMMUNITY HEALTH

INFRASTRUCTURE

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

EDUCATION, RECREATION & CHILDREN

We look forward to working with you, and thanks again from all of us at “Jacques Roy for Mayor.”

Jacques M. Roy Campaign Office
1100 M.L. King Drive
Alexandria, Louisiana 71301
(318) 487-9537
(318) 487-1353 (fax)
jacqroy@aol.com