2001 Annual Report Executive
Summary
Ripley Champion Community
Executive Summary: A. Ripley County has made significant progress with six of the nine benchmarks during calendar year 2001. Doniphan City responded to an RFP from state DED $250,000 for seed money to start the process. DED awarded city this grant on behalf of group from Poplar Bluff in October 2001. Group is seeking matching funds and they expect to start work on 16 housing units in the spring of 2002. Project is adjacent to the Ripley County Family Resource Center discussed later. B. Justice Center Building Donation. Ripley County was donated a building in late 2001for a Justice Center to house the county sheriff's staff and the juvenile officer and their staff. The building is in need of rehabilitation to fully meet office and ADA standards. Funds are being sought from the state DED and USDA-Rural Development for this purpose. This action gets the sheriff and his staff out of the basement of the courthouse and the juvenile officer and his staff out of leased space and frees up space for other county staff (recorder) in the courthouse. C. Increase Capacity of Licensed Daycare Providers. The Ripley County Caring Community Partnership is working to increase the capacity of licensed daycare providers in Ripley County. The capacity has increased from 50 to 265 over the past four years and we have a target of 750 to meet in time. We expect to have an additional 30 slots in calendar year 2002 available. D. Passage of Library Tax. Tax passed in April of 2001. Plans are being reviewed for the library addition and construction is to start in the spring of 2002 with completion planned for the fall of 2002. A 3,000 square foot addition is the target for the project. This project should be completed in 2002. A private donation of $50,000 assisted in making this project complete. E. Lodging Tax Proposal on April 2002 Ballot. The voters in Doniphan, Missouri will decide on a lodging tax at the April 2002 city elections. Community groups are gearing up to promote this effort prior to the elections. This tax will raise about $25,000 each year to promote tourism and to maintain the projects that are attractions to visitors. F. Ripley County Family Resource Center. Work is continuing on the Center that is to be a one-stop place for providing a variety of services to assist people to become self-sufficient and to improve the quality of their life. A shelter is to be located in the partial basement of this center. The community has obtained almost $400,000 in federal, state, and local funds to match with in-kind labor and donations to complete this project. The faith community has responded quite well with volunteer labor to complete this project. Project completion is expected by September of 2002. The above is a summary of the six benchmarks that have made good progress during calendar year 2001. The remaining three benchmarks have had very minor work on them but not enough to warrant reporting at this time.