Junction City Mayor Pat Landes told a Breakfast Optimist Club audience Wednesday that his strategies for problem solving include analyzing, defining and then following through toward the solution. Landes stated when he joined the city commission the water and waste water infrastructure was crumbling. At that time six of the twenty funds in the City budget were in the red and now are in the black with a $30 million reserve.

According to Club Member Ferrell Miller, the mayor noted that the City Commission has kept the mill levy flat, and the city debt has been lowered from $176 million down to less than $100 million. There have been successful efforts at finding creative ways to improve the streets with matching funds.

Land Bank lots have been offered to new teachers in USD 475 and St. Xavier schools. Landes said there are currently 920 lots in the Land Bank, and the city has to be creative on how to get people to build houses on them, and then stay here.

Some of the goals cited by the Mayor include to “clean up Grant Avenue and possibly make it an industrial / manufacturing area because rail access is already there, working with the USD 475 staff on road access to the new Junction City High School, diversifying the economy an presenting a positive image of Junction City.

The JC Breakfast Optimist Club held their weekly meeting at the Hampton Inn in Junction City on Wednesday.