Newberry's six-month progress report

Mayor Jim Newberry on Tuesday issued a report on the progress and accomplishments of his administration during his first six months in office.

“I know we have made some progress, but I also know that we have a lot more work yet to do and so this is a report we hope to update along the way to keep it reasonably current so people can see we are making progress,” Newberry said.

The progress report — which can be found on the city’s Web site — is split up into three sections:

• Initiatives completed in the first six months;

• Tasks the administration has begun addressing that should be completed in the next six months; and

• A comparison between the administration’s accomplishments with Newberry’s mayoral campaign platform.

“Obviously this is a four-year undertaking so we haven’t completed everything that we hope we’ll be able to accomplish at the end of four years, but we started making progress on a number of fronts,” Newberry said.

One of the accomplishments that he is most pleased with is the improved relationship between the Urban County Council and the administration, Newberry said.

He has gone on district tours with several of the council members, the administration and council has held two joint retreats and the council was actively involved in the budget process, Newberry said.

“I am very, very comfortable with the working relationship that has been established,” Newberry said. “That’s not to say there won’t be disagreements along the way, but I think those disagreements will be healthy, will be civil and will ultimately resolve in better solutions for our community.”

The progress report is intended to be a tool that citizens can “use to conduct their own review of what has been transpiring in city hall since I and the rest of the folks on our team arrived here in January of this year,” Newberry said.

“I want citizens to be able to see what we’re doing and to have an opportunity for their comments, suggestions and complaints,” Newberry said.

The progress report site includes an e-mail address for citizens to to use to e-mail their comments directly to Newberry.

To listen to the raw, unedited audio from Newberry’s press conference about the progress report, click here.

- Michelle Ku