From left, All-American City Committee members Patty Peterson-Cherry, Pastor Matt Seals, Dr. Wesley Johnson, City Manager James Duncan and Shirley Williams.
Group turns attention to growing a new community project
A move to try once again to earn Clinton the designation of an All America City was halted this week after committee members opted to put the brakes on a 2025 application process while accelerating plans, instead, to search for new projects that might meet one or more of the city’s greatest needs.
“I motion that we don’t apply for 2025 and, instead, wait to apply until we can see the theme for 2026,” All-America City Committee member Dee Bryant said during a meeting held Wednesday, the second meeting since the group’s re-formation earlier this year.
The motion was passed unanimously.
Plans had been for the committee to begin work now on finding projects and applying for the 2025 designation, but when members discovered the theme for that year would be climate change and sustainability they decided there were no projects within the city that would fit into that scenario.
“We are a small town and climate change is a big issue for larger areas,” noted member Susan Bristow. “I just don’t think we have anything to fit into that theme.”
Committee members all agreed and voted to wait until the theme for 2026 came out and apply then, while in the meantime honing in on some of the city’s greatest needs and finding creative ways to solve them.
City manager James (J.P.) Duncan said that while the idea to try again was brought up earlier, having the insight from the committee that it was not a doable thing for 2025 was important, and that it was best to not go for it and instead wait until another year’s theme fits what the community has done.
“Obviously, with the committee’s insight we’re not going to try to go after [it] any particular year, but if we feel like one year fits then we’ll go for it,” Duncan said after the meeting.
The committee did, however, come up with another idea during the meeting. Instead of halting meetings until it was time to apply for the 2026 All-America City contest, they would meet monthly to plan out projects that the city could do now that could better the city and then be used for the future.
“We should meet a few times a year, or a couple of months, to be the catalyst for finding projects and fundraisers for those projects,” All-America City Committee member Sherry Matthews said. “We need to bring some ideas back to this group, hash them out and figure out a way to meet the need, including a fundraiser.”
The agreement was once again unanimous.
“I think having the committee meet as a whole keeps the focus on the goal in hand and keeps it in the front of minds that we want to work toward becoming an All-America City again,” Duncan said.
The city manager also said that having the committee create the projects for the city would be an “excellent outcome.”
As for what the committee will determine is a good project, that has not been decided yet. On Wednesday, there was talk of building sidewalks in the community, helping at-risk children and working to resolve a growing need of food insecurity among Clinton City School students.
An idea for another Dancing with the Stars event was brought up by Bristow as a possible means of funding one or more of the projects once proposed.
The committee members will bring a few project ideas to next month’s meeting where they will then decide which ones to bring to the City Council.
What makes a city an All-America City?
According to the National Civic League, the answer can be boiled down to a community who works together to address issues and create a solution with the help of residents, businesses and community leaders. Every year, communities who work on these changes can apply to be an All-American City through the National Civic League by sending in an application showing three projects that match that year’s theme and at least five years worth of data showing that it helped the community solve one of their problems.
In 2007, Clinton was named an All-American City for raising money to build a new Clinton High School, improving the Technology Learning Center for use by students in the city schools, and creating a project to bring down obesity numbers in both adults and children in the community.
In 2019, Clinton ended as a finalist for All-American City with projects that focused on building relationships with the residents and the police after revitalizing the Newkirk Park, creating a community vegetable garden that students could use to learn from and find nutrition,and creating advisory panels to strengthen the relationship between the Smithfield plant in Clinton and the people who lived near it.
You can reach Alyssa Bergey at 910-249-4617.