Updates on projects

Amanda and I have been working on several joint projects now that rotations are over. One of our projects is designing the Marana booth at the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. Since neither of us have attended this event, we had little to go on when planning our own booth design. We are working with Kelsie Hanson, the Town's new graphic designer, on putting together some photo collages that pertain to Marana's five strategic focuses; Commerce, Community Building, Heritage, Progress and Innovation, and Recreation. Last week, Amanda and I took a tour of Marana, taking pictures of landmarks that we found unique to the area and hope to use in our setup.

While driving around town, the theme for the booth materialized as we realized how driving is a large part of seeing all parts of Marana. That's when we decided; have the booth theme be based on a Marana road trip. We can highlight the areas of Marana that we find to be most remarkable, while making visitors to the booth feel like they're they actually entering Marana while there. This can be done by using road signs, like "Welcome to Marana", and utilizing identifiable street signs and banners.

We visited Orville of Operations and Maintenance to see what street signs were available. There were plenty to choose from, and Orville was extremely helpful in suggesting ideas for the booth layout. So far, I think the road map is going to be a really good one. At least I really hope so!

In other news, I've been working still with compiling surveys from San Lucas for the emergency preparedness project. We found a way to create an online survey format for those who don't respond to our mail-in one. Curious to see how it will compile data, I began entering survey information from those who have mailed back their responses. I was pleased to see that the online software format compiles the information very similarly to the way we wanted.

I had an opportunity to tour around the business areas of Marana with Josh Wright last week. He showed me some of the Town's prominent employers, as well as future plans for the Ina area. It's very exciting knowing what changes are coming, especially since I've known that area for almost my whole life. Meeting with businesses is one of Josh's duties. It is important to know the needs of the businesses within your municipality, because businesses are the driving force of economic development.