Friday, Mar. 28, 2008

Mayor: State of the city is strong

A new twist was put on the introduction of Mayor Mike Copeland before his annual State of the City address.

Copeland was preceded by a short video of his two daughters —Olivia, 8, and Abby, 6, — who before introducing him told the audience why Copeland is such a great father.

Afterward, Copeland jokingly told the audience that the position of city communications director was available after Tim Danneberg orchestrated the introduction as an alternative to someone reading a list of Copeland's accomplishments.

The speech began with Copeland describing how recent city successes have created momentum in Olathe.

He cited two of Olathe's largest employers. Farmers Insurance announced in February the creation of 600 new jobs, bringing the company's presence in the city to more than 3,000. By 2011, he said Farmers expects to employ more than 4,000 people in Olathe.

Garmin added 650 jobs in Olathe while nearly doubling its global work force last year to 8,400 people when its sales grew 70 percent.

He mentioned the continuing development of the Kansas Bioscience Park and Kansas State University campus in Olathe and success of other developments along the Kansas Highway 10 corridor including the Corporate Ridge Office Park and the College Point retail and business center.

He talked about the construction of several industrial projects in south Olathe that will be aided by the $67 million Lone Elm interchange. The projects include the Kansas City area's largest speculative building — at 600,000 square feet — which broke ground in October.

He said 1,850 jobs were created, and more than 1.5 million square feet of commercial space was developed in Olathe last year.

And he mentioned recently completed city projects including the downtown parking garage, the railroad-elevation project — which should be complete in the next couple of days — and future projects to revitalize downtown.

"We continually challenge ourselves to find ways to learn and improve and that commitment is paying off," Copeland said citing record resident satisfaction from the annual DirectionFinder survey. "Our citizens tell us we're doing it better than anyone else. We will stay that way because we recognize there are always ways to improve."

Copeland incorporated Olathe's sucess to illustrate how that translates to a successful community. He told a story about a young man who asked a group of masons what they were doing. More than laying bricks or building walls, a mason told the boy that he was building a "marvelous cathedral that will inspire generations to come," he said.

The aforementioned projects, companies and newly created jobs and the city's abundant number of volunteers and nonprofit programs are merely bricks, but when put together they make up the entire community, Copeland said.

"Yes, the state of our city is clearly strong," he said. "But today, we're building a monumental cathedral together, and that speaks to the strength of our community."

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