2001 Annual Report Executive Summary
City of Charleston Champion Community
This is the City of Charleston’s first year as a Champion Community. Progress made in the past few months has been slow and sporadic. One key factor in our lack of progress has been due to lack of support from key members of the community. The “teams” that were established when we first made application for empowerment zone designation have all but disappeared. There are many reasons for this. Key community members are heavily involved in their livelihoods and other community projects. We have done a poor job of educating our community on what we started out to do and where we currently stand from a multi-million dollar proposal to zero dollars. We are taking steps to change this scenario. We are establishing a new team of community residents that will address our current benchmarking efforts. Although our benchmarks were established by community residents, changes in the community over the past two to three years will require us to revisit our originally defined goals, and look at new problems/opportunities within our community. We have made some progress in reaching our benchmark goals. As part of a prevention grant received through the State of Missouri-Department of Mental Health, we are currently providing risk prevention programming to all schools within the Charleston R-1 School District. This prevention training includes alcohol, tobacco and other drug classroom training for all students from grades 1-12. Efforts are being made to make prevention education part of the regular curricula. We are also currently attempting to establish a truancy court within the school district, which will sanction youth and adults for failure to attend school, and will reward those students who improve his or her school attendance. Although we have made no progress in providing residential drug treatment to the community as a whole, we have established both juvenile and adult drug treatment programs for persons who have been court-adjudicated with drug issues facing their current and future livelihoods. Currently, our ability to serve and provide treatment is due to lack of funding for treatment, and the lack of treatment providers within the community. We are currently in negotiations to purchase the former De-Sta-Co building to be used as a community resource center. Questions about future state funding to support and maintain the building will weigh heavily on our decision to purchase the property. Loss of revenues from the closing of a local Wal-Mart store will impact the City’s decision to repair or replace current infrastructure, including roadways and water improvements. Due to budget shortfalls in the state of Missouri, our new state prison will not perform at peak levels for the next two years, thus eliminating current need for new job opportunities.
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