13 February 2016

always good ideas at the bottom of a coffee cup.

Today, River City Eatery hosted "Coffee with the Council," and I can't tell you how wonderful it is that the city council is offering the public a neutral space and time to sit down over coffee and have discussions about the important things facing our community.  This is a step in the right direction, folks.  I believe city politics should be transparent.  I believe city politicians should be approachable, and we should be able to have positive discussions about issues that will directly reflect the quality of life in our city.  I believe in an opportunity to be heard and understood. I believe the tough decisions we trust our city leaders to make should be guided by the voices and concerns of the people who live in our community.  Through Coffee with the Council, our city council members are now giving us, the people of this community, the perfect opportunity to be heard in a non formal, intimidation-free environment, and I encourage all community members to attend Coffee with the Council.  Below is a list of places and times for the upcoming year.

                                                              Coffee with Council
2016 Schedule

January 9                             Hy-Vee                                               Cooley & Johnson

February 13                         River City Eatery                               Jones & Joyce
               
March 12                             Hardee’s                                             Ray & Cooley

April 9                                 McDonalds                                         Johnson & Jones

May 14                                Hy-Vee                                               Joyce & Ray

June 11                                River City Eatery                               Cooley & Johnson

July 9                                  Hardee’s                                              Jones & Joyce

August 13                           Windom Country Club                       Ray & Cooley

September 10                      Hy-Vee                                               Johnson & Jones

October 8                            River City Eatery                               Joyce & Ray

November 12                      Hardee’s                                             Cooley & Johnson

December 10                      McDonalds                                         Jones & Joyce

01 February 2016

updates.

Where to start? Thank you to those who have requested more posts from me.  It is humbling to know I have listeners.  I'm truly passionate about Finding Windom, my community, the place I call home, and I need to remember to keep tracking my journey.  I know, my posts have been, well, absent.  Yes, River City Eatery is keeping me quite busy, family keeps me busy, and well, Finding Windom keeps me busy.  But let's get to the point...I haven't gone anywhere, I'm still working on making my community a better place, so let me start again to fill you in on what we've been up to during the void of my2cents.blogspot.com...

Finding Windom continues to work on keeping the appearance of our city a clean one. We adopted Highway 60/71 going through our city limits, which is the first group in the state of Minnesota to adopt within city limits.  How exciting!  I'm proud to see our "Adopt a Highway" signs on the edge of town.  In the fall of 2015, Finding Windom introduced "It's Hip to be Square" downtown revitalization initiative.  Since the inception of Finding Windom in 2010, one of our missions has been to revitalize our beautiful downtown Square, and we are finally on our way into making a big impact through small changes right now (watch for future posts on more details of our initiative).  Finding Windom continues to meet the first Monday of each month at River City Eatery and our downtown revitalization initiative meets every month as well.  Our next meeting is Monday, February 15th at 7pm at River City Eatery.

The first kick off event of "Its Hip to be Square" was the "Downtown Christmas by Candlelight."  Let me tell you, folks, this event was awesome! I was so impressed by amount of support and participation from our local businesses and organizations that I can't help but be optimistic about where this initiative is headed.  Holy cow!  On the cold, windy winter night of December 17th, our retailers and local businesses stayed open, along with several organizations such as the Historical Society, the public library, BARC, the Cottonwood County Courthouse, and the Windom State Theatre, until 7pm by candlelight.  Live reindeer, horse and wagon rides featuring a nightwatchmen who pointed out historical architecture around our Square.  Christmas carolers and greetings of "Merry Christmas" were plenty.  It was a storybook setting, a Gilmore Girls scene, it was a community coming together to gather and celebrate where the founders of Windom intended their community members to gather, around that beautiful courthouse, around the Square.  I think this event was the beginning of something wonderful, and I promise to keep you updated...