Roundup Mayor Sandra Jones

Sandra Jones was elected Mayor of the City of Roundup on January 1st, 2014. The term for a city mayor is four years, she was re-elected in 2018 and is now in her second 4 year term serving our city.

I met with Mayor Jones and she gave me so much information about the work she does for our city. Mainly advocating for the needs and the face of the city, and working to take public consensus and move it towards real actions. More specifically, as Mayor, Sandra is the Chief Executive Officer of the city, which is the executive branch of our local government. She enforces ordinances, oversees the city employees, and signs off on claims and bills that are paid. Sandra represents the city's legislative issues. She sits on many different boards, and is always bringing information back to the council to assimilate, get a consensus, and see where they stand on issues. She advocates for what we need in our city to make it as "healthy and safe as it can be". She sets the agenda for the meetings based on the "Needs Assessment" (created in 2016 based on public input on what the public wants the city to do).

She informed me that the number one public priority is always the water. "I am always conveying what we are doing on the water, and how we are moving forward in that direction.", she said. One of the main things the city has been doing is upgrading city infrastructure and water mains. This is done in phases. Most of that money being used is grant money, the city does have to put some money to match funds and the city has had to take out some loans to do that, but the majority of the money being spent is grant money. The "Needs Assessment" can be reviewed online on our city website.

Based on the "Needs Assessment" there is a "Capital Improvement Plan" formulated each year. For the year of 2020 we will be doing street paving again and chip sealing for streets, library plumbing upgrades, reservoir cleaning, and rehabilitation (water). These things are done in phases based on money.

The "Growth Policy" is a formulated that determines the way we are looking to the future of the city. What the "Growth Policy" reveals according to Mayor Jones, is that we are never going to experience huge population growth in our city. The "Growth Policy" has to be approved by the City County Planning Board. Zoning has to be included in plan. From the "Growth Policy" the "Downtown Preservation Plan" is formulated, which is like a historic district. The City has this district zoned. There are now two historical buildings on the state register, the old Central school building, and the Community Center. There are a couple more buildings that can go on, however, once the building go on that roster, you can only do things a certain way to restore them. She says the city hesitates to put more on the roster as it may tie the hands of someone seeking to improve property. Sandra wants to have a mixed zone for downtown buildings so that they can also be used as residential and commercial, as that was also the original intent in the original town, merchants lived in the business building.

The "Downtown Renewal Master Plan" is another plan that Mayor Jones has personally driven. Based on an "Urban Renewal Plan", a designated blighted area met by the department of Revenue. The town has to have enough blight to meet or warrant that renewal threshold. The Mayor says this happened within walking two blocks. The next step in the renewal is creating a district. This district encompasses about forty percent of our town. The "Urban Renewal Plan" is created ultimately to incentivize revitalization efforts by providing opportunity for tax increment money available for revitalization projects . The mayor has worked within this plan to create a tax increment finance district. Everyone within that district can access the tax increment finance opportunity. When the plan is completed, the opportunity will be advertised, there will be an application for anyone wanting to access those funds, which will then be approved by the board first and then final approval by the city council. There are bylaws for board, the application process for the applicant, and scoring process for the board to score fairly for the applicant. If everything is perfect and funds are available there can be up to a 50/50 match. They mayor is very passionate about this project and hopes that this will be an incentive to improve a blighted area and also the person trying to invest in it.

Mayor Jones has been in the Roundup area since the mid nineties. Her husband, David Jones, often provides our paper with local photos. She is very happy to live in and serve our community.

Mayor Jones is working hard for the interest of our city. Her knowledge about Roundup and its future is visible in the plans she has put so much time into. She wants to let the public know that they can access and look at any of these plans on the City's website http://www.roundupmontana.net.