M A Y O R A L M EE SS SS AA GG EE
I recently had the opportunity to deliver my sixth annual State of the City address during a St. George Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon. It was great to communicate to a large audience about our City’s accomplishments and what we have planned. I think you’ll agree it is a great time to live in St. George. Our optimism is overflowing. Those unable to attend can watch the State of the City in its entirety at www. sgcity.org. For those who don’t have an hour to spare, I’d like to offer a condensed version. It is broken into two sections: City Accomplishments and More Happening Ahead. City Accomplishments What is resilience? Dr. Ernestine Briggs-King of the Duke University School of Medicine and the National Child • IRONMAN announced raceor will comefollowing to St. George in September 2021. This will bring Traumatic Stress 70.3 Network definesitsit world as “thechampionship ability to recover adapt a traumatic event.” She further explains an influx of athletes and their supporters to our city. Recent hosts of the world championship include Nice, France, and thatTaupo, resilience includes “handling coping with New Zealand. This is aorbig-time event.adversity in a way that fosters growth and strength.”
• What The St.factors George Regional AirportDr. runway project points was completed on time within theasbudget. TheShe’s day itnot reopened, lead to resilience? Briggs-King to connections to and other people being key. alone. American Eagle via SkyWest added a new flight to and from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Remember, the Most researchers agree, and really, it doesn’t take a lot of research to know that hard things are easier to bear when we more people fly out of St. George, the more flights come to St. George. have someone we can lean on. If you’ve seen billboards along I-15 the past few months, you know that suicide prevention • As our City has grown, so has our need for more firefighters. In 2019, we hired nine new full-time firefighters thanks to looks lot like spending timehelps connecting with another thea SAFER grant, which pay their salaries for person. several years.
people who settledsignificant much of water-saving the West, including corner of Utah, understoodgolf this. Here which in Washington • The We have implemented measuresour at each of our four city-owned courses, are already irrigated reuse water. group—musicians and blacksmiths, farmers and craftsmen. They came from all over County, theywith were a diverse • Attainable is a significant andThey we are meeting itthat headtheir on. We formed the Housing Action Coalition the world andhousing spoke several differentchallenge, languages. understood survival required working together and to collaborate on ideas and educate the public. embracing their diversity. • We hosted four Neighborhood Open Houses in different areas of town. Connections with people may be a bit more difficult right now, but we are creative, caring people and fully capable of More Happening Ahead finding ways to see the people behind the literal and metaphorical masks we wear. Over the coming months, let’s make it • Our City campus is undergoing extensive renovation. City Hall and the police station will be updated and enlarged, and ouraindividual missionswill to find and kind ways to connect with others. parking structure givesafe us an increase of more than seventy parking spaces.
• This While we will be another hosting two IRONMAN 70.3 events PhD, in 2021, we will bring backinthePsychology full-distance IRONMAN brings us to pieceseparate of research. Dr. Sherry Hamby, published an article Today entitled in 2020. This 140.6-mile endurance test was here from 2010 to 2012. “Sense of Purpose—The Most Important Strength?” ( January 31, 2020). In the article, she details a research project • FireatStation being remodeled and willthat become a full-time this spring. aimed findingSix theistop nine or ten strengths lead to resilience.station The results were surprisingly consistent: “A sense of • Desert Color to andcontribute Desert Canyons master-planned are vertical in southern George. Desert Color was purpose appears to well-being more thandevelopments other strengths,” she concluded. I seeSt.that exhibited throughout honored recently for its water-conservation measures. our community. • Sand Hollow Aquatic Center is getting a new roof, Snake Hollow Bike Park will see improvements, and the Missing Linkholidays Trail—part the Virgin Riverbeyond North Trail system—is construction. The oftenoflead us to think ourselves. These under past couple of months, we have seen so many examples of• this, fromfour basket brigades andOpen otherHouses meals provided need onSunRiver Thanksgiving to ToysCenter; For Tots and9Coins for We have Neighborhood scheduledtointhose 2020:in Feb. 27 at Community April at Vernon Park; Sept.Virtual 10 at South Mountain Church; Oct. 22 at 2450 Eastour Park. KidsWorthen at Christmastime. fund raisers haveCommunity been the norm since COVID-19 hit, and residents have opened their This article is just a taste of thenon-profit eighty-five slides(ie: in other my State of theeven Cityinpresentation. is sotimes muchforgoing on in St. hearts and their wallets to help groups people!) the middle ofThere difficult themselves. George! As we move ahead with plans to make this City the best place in the world to work and play, my colleagues and I feel Wetoallserve do better when we are great needed—when honored the citizens of this community.we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We have friends and neighbors who need us. Let’s continue to look for opportunities to help others in this new year, whenever and however we are able.
JonHere’sPiketo a safe, kind, healthy, and resilient 2021! Mayor, City of St. George
Jon Pike
Mayor, City of St. George 8 www.saintgeorgewellness.com 8 www.saintgeorgewellness.com
