-: Well, my name is Melissa Bailey,
and I am a city planner.
By title, I am the Director of Planning
and Community Development for the city of Florence.
So in terms of, say, arts and museums,
if the site is already predetermined,
then our job would be to
work on the design concept of that particular building,
whether it's an internal effort or a combination of
consultants and specialized designers
for whatever type of facility it's going to be.
And we look at the unseen.
We're the, some people call us the dreamers,
but we're the ones that take that information from paper
and begin to formulate it
in a manner that can be seen.
And eventually,
constructing that resource
and then providing it to the citizens.
We use what's called the comprehensive planning process,
that's, it was established
with King Phillip of Spain back in the 1500s,
so it's certainly not a new concept,
but we strive, in everything we do, to
take the opinions and standards of the citizens,
to put those into our long-term planning process.
So one of the first things we're going to do,
whether it's a museum, or a substation, (laughs)
or even if it's a retail, a new commercial retail area,
we want to understand the standards
that the citizens of Florence have, and we will do that
through a highly involved
public process, whether through surveying
or through a series of meetings to gather their interest
and what they hold dear to them
before we ever do anything else.
And it's then after that that we start to gather
the known resources that we have in terms of utilities
and whether or not
the particular location that
is chosen is actually a viable location for
whatever the resource will be.
Our downtown is just spectacular,
and I feel a sense of responsibility in keeping it vibrant.
There are so many others that work to make that happen,
but I do have that sense of responsibility.
We've instituted a streetscape program
that I feel like has put us head and shoulders above
other downtown areas, and has kept it vibrant,
so it was nice to be a part of that.