2020/02/18 - Mayor's Column: Smart Growth Part One
“An Open Door to O’Fallon”
A Weekly Note from Mayor Herb Roach
O’Fallon is developing a long-term plan for economic development and smart growth for the betterment of our collective future. We are not putting all our “economic development eggs” into one basket and we are not sitting back on former success. Building a strong and diverse economy is essential for our long-term success as a community.
Often cities, companies, and individuals have assets, but they don’t utilize them to really make a difference going forward. Here in O’Fallon, we are using the many assets that we have to help us continue to progress. The following is a brief rundown of what we are doing to move forward:
Education: We have very good local schools and Universities, which is attractive to families and help make available a good educated work force for employers.
Housing: We have attractive homes and apartments for individuals to move into; and more on the way.
Location: We have an interstate highway with four exits and entrances into O’Fallon.
Thriving Retail Market Place: Retail firms like to locate where there is a good developed pattern of traffic and growing population. We have developed studies to demonstrate the amount of traffic that comes and goes through O’Fallon.
Access to Medicine: Two local hospitals located on the interstate makes O’Fallon very attractive for medical personnel and facilities.
Scott Air Force Base: Some of the best trained cybersecurity and logistics people in the world (many that retire from the military with 15 to 20 more years in their working career), makes for a good selling point to logistics and computer firms.
Room to Grow: Many communities are land locked. O’Fallon is not. We have thousands of acres available for expansion. In fact, we just annexed more ground to our east for future growth plans.
Utilities: Since we own our own water and sewer departments, we have two major resources that we bring into play without having to rely on a third party to act.
Safety: Any new family or business wants to know that they are going to come into a community that is safe to live and operate in. We are blessed to have a highly rated Police Department, Fire Department and EMS Department. The fact that O’Fallon ranks in the top 5% of safest cities in Illinois sure helps.
Next week, there will be a second part of this column that covers the details of what we are doing with these great assets to continue to keep O’Fallon the number one community in the region.
As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open!