Perry officials represent city at national conference

Five Perry officials will be traveling to Austin, Texas, this week to represent the city from February 8-11 at The Vacant Property Leadership Institute (VPLI) — a four-day training conference hosted by National League of Cities and Center for Community Progress, organizations partnering to improve the qualities of life for residents in communities across the country.

Addressing property blight around the city — whether it’s residential, commercial or industrial — is a common focus for 2022 among city development personnel, Perry Community Planner, according to Holly Wharton.

“The goal of this conference is to learn strategies about how to address challenges that are associated with vacant or abandoned properties,” she said.

A press release on the city website stated vacant and abandoned properties are commonly linked to an increase in crime and a decline in property values.

“My department and the city overall is prioritizing reducing blight,” Wharton said. “It’s a topic of our strategic plan that’s about to come out. It’s something that’s very important to the [city] council, and so this conference will help us to move towards addressing those issues and challenges associated with vacant properties.”

The conference’s two-step application process to attend was a competitive one.

“The application was a two-step process, and once you passed the first level, they invited you to fill out the whole application,” Wharton said. “That included a lot on data collection, on code compliance, on city demographics and just demonstrating the need for the skills that would be in that program.”

In the ‘Letter of Interest Eligibility and Selection Criteria’ listed on the website of National League of Cities, interested participants would be evaluated based on demonstrated need, commitment to addressing problem properties, commitment to equitable community development, interest in a multi-stakeholder format and open minds.

The city press release stated: “Perry was selected for VPLI because it demonstrates strong leadership, is committed to developing new solutions, and represents a unique opportunity to shift the systems responsible for vacant, abandoned, and other problem properties.”

Cities selected include everything from rural to urban, with populations from just over 14,000 and up to 2.7 million. Perry will join representatives from the cities College Park and South Fulton to represent Georgia at the conference.

Cities represented from Illinois include Chicago, Decatur, Kankakee, Peoria and Rockford. Cities represented from Kentucky include Louisville and Winchester, while cities from Wisconsin include Milwaukee and Racine.

Among those traveling to the convention will include Wharton, City Council Members Phyllis Bynum-Grace and Willie King, Code Compliance Specialist Danny Hicks, as well as Tax & License Specialist Liz Nelson.

HHJ News