Minutes 03/24/1981 - Laserfiche WebLink

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r{) Jc) TUESDAY MARCH 24, 1981 Upon recommendation from City l~nager Edmonds (by his memorandum report dated March 20, 1981), Council authorized the preparation of a resolution which will implement Mr. Edmonds' proposal to reorganize the Central Business District Commission, the resolution to be considered by Council in time for it to make appointments to the reorganized Commission before July 1, 1981. The following is a copy of City Manager Edmonds' report (dated March 20, 1981) entitled, "Current Planning Issues", with Council concurring with Mr. Edmonds' verbal outline for the organizing and work-scope of the proposed City-County Merger Study Committee: Background In the past several months, three rather basic planning issues or questions have been suggested for the City's attention, as follows: 1. The need to study various factors which may have caused the City's loss of population between 1970 and 1980. 2. The need to update the City's comprehensive plan. 3. The feasibility of City-County merger and/or consolidation of additional governmental functions. Each of the three propositions is complicated in its own way, would require the energy and involvement of a number of people, and would necessitate certain costs, as yet undetermined. The purpose of this memorandum report is to briefly examine these questions and to propose a future strategy to deal with them. Population Loss The preliminary count from the 1980 censuS had Martinsville with 17,929 persons, an 8.8% decrease from the 1970 count of 19,653. The final 1980 count was slightly improved, with l8,149--a decrease from 1970 of 7.6%. No City officials seemed particularly surprised by the 1980 counts, as it was generally believed that the City had been declining slightly in population, and there was no protest or question registered with the Census Bureau. ------------,-----_.._---_._--'_.~-'-