City Attorney updates council on ONE Marshall County and the Comprehensive Plan

Thursday, August 1, 2024 at 12:15 AM

By Kathy Bottorff

Plymouth City Attorney Jeff Houin gave an update on ONE Marshall County during last week’s city meeting. He told the council they are primarily focused on READI Grant 2.0 applications that were released by the Region. Houin said all the municipalities in the region are scrambling to get applications put together. ONE Marshall County is focused on assisting the municipalities with the application process and working to bring forward the best projects to hopefully capture as much as possible of that grant money.

InFocus has been guiding the process from the start and last week InFocus held its annual celebration where they showcased different projects that they have assisted on during the last year. Houin attended the event and said, “One of the most prominent displays as you first walked into the room was ONE Marshall County and they garnered a lot of interest, and it was very exciting to see so much interest from throughout the region.” The city attorney said there was a lot of interest from leaders in other communities in seeing the concept that has been coming forward through the ONE Marshall County process.

The attorney’s update on the Comprehensive Plan told city council members that subcommittees continue to work. Houin said the Marketing Committee is planning some public outreach at different events in the upcoming months for the YOU Belong campaign.

A new subcommittee called the Empowerment Subcommittee is designed to increase the communication and networks among various residents within the city, especially the Hispanic community. We are trying to bring people together. One thing that has come up is that city communications are only in English and there are a lot of residents in the city who don’t speak English or not well enough to understand the communication. Houin told the council they are working with the school corporation because they have been distributing all their communications in both English and Spanish for years. The committee will work to learn how to best accommodate that for all the residents of Plymouth.

The new Empowerment Subcommittee will work to identify other ways the city can empower residents to be more involved and contribute to the city.