HOLLANDALE — It has once been said belief is a wise wager.
If that is so, then the City of Hollandale and its leadership is all in when it comes to the future of the municipality.
Evidence of such was on display Thursday night at the South Washington County Multiplex as Hollandale’s board of aldermen and Mayor Peresa Causey were joined by District 5 Supervisor Jerry Redmond Sr., community members, clergyman and others for the inaugural launch of the city’s website and strategic plan for this year.
Ask any of the men or women at the forefront of leading the town about how optimistic they are about the future, they’ll likely respond with the newly coined theme and hashtag, #webelieveinHollandale.
Consultant and ARPA administrator for the City, Andrew Smith, gave an introduction to what the evening would entail and highlighted the collective efforts of those who had a hand in the strategic planning.
Causey was elated to see citizens brave the unfavorable weather conditions and be in attendance for the website and unveiling of the city’s strategic plan.
“Whatever you hear, see or learn, you can pass it on to someone else to help them get on board with the project #webelieveinHollandale. We know we can’t do it all by ourselves and we’re going to need help from everybody in the community,” Causey said to attendees. “I know we can do it because we’re well on our way.”
Jerry Redmond Jr., Hollandale native and owner of Redmond Design Service LLC., brought the town’s vision for a website to life, incorporating the #webelieveinHollandale theme, details of historical significance, interactive features and other essential aspects.
Dr. Creston Burse was retained to assist with the development and execution of the city’s strategic plan.
“I applaud you all for taking the approach toward making improvements in your community and kind of setting the stage for where you will go from here moving forward. You’ve had two really dynamic individuals working on what you will see tonight,” said Smith, noting the contributions of Redmond and Burse. “This is really a moment in the history of your city to celebrate. There has not been any type of formal plan prepared for Hollandale since 1972.”
Smith urged attendees to be “fully involved” with what they saw and emphasized the importance of encouraging others to be involved as well.
“The entire world has access to Hollandale, MS now. We have some continued work to do,” said Redmond Jr. “This is the first generation of our website and we’ve covered the basics right now. This is a solid foundation for the City of Hollandale to build on as we progress into fundraising, events and other matters. We will begin to integrate those online.”
In addition to Mayor and board of aldermen contact information, Redmond Jr. highlighted members’ ability to maintain their own respective pages in order to provide information pertinent to their individual wards.
“All of this is responsively designed as well so it will convert itself to be responsively designed from your phone,” Redmond Jr. said further. “We will look into going into a second phase of this to give it more substance.”
Burse began his address to the crowd by reiterating the city’s vision statement, “A town preparing for the future today,” and noted that a strategic plan is merely a game plan, albeit long term, for the direction the city wants to go in.
“We started with 2023, but as we build on this, we’ll start looking at what the next five years look like,” said Burse. “Hopefully we’ll be able to see some of that progress as we move forward.”
Burse took a four-pronged approach by using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to determine what the city’s next steps would be with “strengths” being the foundation of the strategic plan.
The top three strengths identified in the strategic plan are:
unify and create a strong community
continue and market education system
Rich history in sports
The objectives which directly correspond with those strengths include establishing a Highway 61 Community Walk/5k; establishing a multicultural City of Hollandale community Easter and Thanksgiving worship service; Increasing communication between City leadership by establishing monthly Ward/Alderman meeting; establishing monthly correspondence of past Hollandale and surrounding area student successes; marketing and advertising Simmons High School National Alumni events; exploring requirements to obtain historic site for Sam Chatmon marker for old Hwy 61; restoring recreational tennis courts/Hollandale Colored Center; marketing and advertising Sam Chatmon Blues Festival in September 2023.
He also pointed out how opportunities and threats will almost appear to be similar.
“That just lets you know that some people might look at one thing and see something and some people may be looking at something else and see something totally different,” he explained.
As noted in the strategic plan, key takeaways and observations from the “weakness analysis” session with Hollandale stakeholders included the identification of the city’s top three weaknesses.
They included lack of job opportunities, economic and business growth; lack of total community support and participation in community and municipal activities; and lack of current city government leadership and experience. Each objective and outcome were voted on by all session participants.
To address those weaknesses, session participants voted to make exploring requirements and opportunity for Pilot Flying or Love's Travel Stop a main objective.
Every objective in the plan has a quarterly target date for completion in order to meet the overall goal of efficiently and equitably addressing the community’s needs and carrying out future visions.
