To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Kristin Zagurski, Assistant to the Town Manager
Title
Presentation: Your Town Academy Graduating Class
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
Council in April directed staff to complete the development of a Townwide civic academy so the program could be offered to the community beginning this year.
Staff completed the curriculum and advertised the Your Town Academy program to the community in June. The class of 30 residents and business owners filled up in less than two weeks. (At least a dozen other community members expressed interest in joining the class after it was at capacity.) Classes kicked off August 29, and since then, the class has learned about all aspects of
Town operations.
The students have been receiving a puzzle piece each week of the academy, representing the aspect of Town government they learned about that evening. Tonight, we ask the Mayor to present graduating students their final puzzle pieces, which signify their successful completion of
the program.
Daniel Ahrens Bryan Bakley Linda Baumann
Janene Cable Katie Coleman Elizabeth Crawford
Norman Crawford Bonnie Dews Charles Fletcher
Siegfriedi Guentensberger Steven Gurzenski Stacy Hancock
Terry Holiway-Yates Amit Jain Karin Kiley-Bowman
Jacob Kuntz William Leung Rosemarie Lohnert
Mark Maloney Tim Miller Michael Orendorf
Brett Turner Sue Turner Kathy Viner
Michael Waggoner Pamela Walters
The class received surveys each week to provide feedback on the program. Their comments were overwhelmingly positive and provided the project team helpful guidance on making the program even better in the future.
Following are a couple of examples of participant feedback:
“(This) program includes information that all Castle Rock citizens can use. We can all be more effective in shaping and supporting our community when we understand how decisions are made.”
“We think about Starlighting, the MAC, DDA when we brag about Castle Rock. But, gosh, our infrastructure is amazing!”
Given the success of the program, staff is planning to offer Your Town Academy again in 2017. Applications are anticipated to again be solicited in summer for a class beginning in the fall. Updates will be posted at CRgov.com/YTA.