The Town is exploring strategic partnerships to build a training hotel for the hospitality industry and various light industrial and agricultural projects to further diversify the local economy. In a collaboration with Sturgeon Public Schools, Gibbons is in the exploratory steps of planning to build a new K-9 school integrated with a community recreation complex. This facility aims to replace our aging infrastructure, offering modern amenities and fostering community engagement. The shared use of spaces like gymnasiums/fieldhouses, ice arenas, library, and black box theatre, ball diamonds, and parking will enhance efficiency and provide extensive benefits to both students and the public. “We’re going to be able to look at as many efficiencies that we can to control operation and maintenance costs going forward, but also very importantly, the building construction,” O’Malley says. As it develops, Gibbons intends to strive to become the first of its kind, a net-zero property tax community. “We want to be the first ever neutral property tax community. So…we’re looking to create partnerships, establish efficiencies and develop services in such a way that it either generates a residual source of revenue for our residents and/or limits the funds that leave the community having no lasting economic benefit,”O’Malley explains. By focusing on innovative development and sustainable growth, Gibbons aims to offer its residents a high quality of life and a vibrant, thriving community via strategies that take advantage of every avenue to get the job done. Opportunities the Town are investigating include establishing a Municipal Internet Service, Hydrovac Dumping Station, Environmental Filtration Trailers, and becoming an energy retailer. A further example includes developing a Town owned Municipal Credit Card program, otherwise known as the Empower Solution. This is a municipal credit card system that funds municipal infrastructure on an annual basis using a municipal control credit card that would pay returns to the citizens. It would be done in such a way that the citizens would set the project where the funds could go, and it would be used to offset the price, relative to the normal method of using property taxes. At the end of the day, each one of these initiatives points to a single overarching truth about this small 172 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 07
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI5MjAx