Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family. Mayor Combs, the City Council and the entire city organization extend our best wishes to you for a safe and happy holiday season.

Please join me in thanking our 900 city employees for their efforts to continue to enhance the quality of life and safety in our community during 2011. I wish for our employees and their families a great holiday season. City employees have demonstrated the three core principles of excellent public service, excellent customer service and innovation in 2011.

The Rocky Mount community and our city organization have faced some significant challenges this year; however, we have also made remarkable strides together.

In August of this year, when Hurricane Irene swept throughEeastern North Carolina, more than 27,000 of our electric customers lost power and more than 250,000 cubic yards of storm debris covered our city. Hurricane Irene created numerous personal needs as well. However, just as we did following Hurricane Floyd and other storms, the Rocky Mount community came together to assist their neighbors in a time of great need.

Throughout 2011, the state of the economy continued to provide its own set of challenges. Our current operating budget balanced conservative fiscal principles with the need to maintain momentum on initiatives which will yield growth and redevelopment. For the past three years, our staff has instituted mid-year reductions in order to minimize use of reserves, and if necessary, are prepared to do so this year.

A major achievement of the past year is the kickoff of the development of a regional vision and strategic plan. The Twin County Visioning and Strategic Planning Process is an exciting and historic collaboration occurring within our two county region. This process is engaging residents, businesses and industries of all cities and towns throughout Nash and Edgecombe counties, and is a collaborative project of the Edgecombe County Board of Commissioners, the Nash County Board of Commissioners and the Rocky Mount City Council. The goal of the Twin County Community Visioning Project is to create a shared vision and action plan based on the collective quality of life goals residents have for our region, and to position the Twin County region to succeed in a globally competitive economy. You will hear much more about opportunities for involvement in the coming new year, and we encourage you to make every effort to participate in this process.

The past year has also seen a number of improvements in our center city, including the dedication of the Douglas Block this past spring. The Douglas Block exemplifies what can be done with new investment in historic places. I am pleased to report the Douglas Block now has an 85 percent occupancy rate for its commercial spaces, and we appreciate the community’s support of these new tenants in downtown Rocky Mount.

We are also making excellent progress on the Downtown Streetscape Project. This $6.5 million investment in our downtown will impact virtually all of the existing infrastructure along Main Street. Main Street will continue to look like a construction zone throughout its “extreme makeover,” but we believe this important project will ensure the public infrastructure downtown will meet the needs of this resurging area well into the future. We appreciate the patience of the Main Street merchants during the construction period and encourage citizens to continue to support these long-standing businesses during the renovations.

The Rocky Mount Sports Complex has been a success story for this community since it opened in 2006. This award-winning facility continues to attract thousands of young athletes and their families to our region for weekend tournaments and is a treasured amenity for local residents and city athletic programs during the week. Recent figures show the facility has welcomed more than 100,000 visitors in 2011. Weekend tournaments alone have generated an economic impact of $8.7 million to our local economy in 2011.

I am also pleased to announce wireless Internet service is now available at the Rocky Mount Train Station, the Douglas Block, the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences, City Hall and the Rocky Mount Sports Complex. In this day and time, we believe it is good customer service to provide Internet access in public areas such as these. Our hope is all who visit these locations will find this new service to be yet another reason to spend time in downtown or at the sports complex.

This year we lost some local icons, including former Mayor Fred Turnage, Chairman of the Central City Revitalization Panel Wes Bailey, Gospel Great Rev. F.C. Barnes, community activist Tekyia Mozell and business leader Nick Boddie. We thank the families of each of these individuals for sharing their loved ones with the Rocky Mount community and continue to pray for you and our community as we remember their contributions.

Again, I send my very best wishes to all of you for a merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. I look forward to working with you in 2012 as we continue to enhance the future for Rocky Mount.