Guest Speaker: Brian Gregory

 

Sycamore City Manager Brian Gregory appeared before his fellow Rotarians to discuss some of the challenges the city is facing for the coming year; he says they've made progress on some long-standing projects, and is hopeful that they'll finish up soon...and as smoothly as planned.

 

He says the upgrade to the city's water system is near completion; this process has gone on for years, as Sycamore sought to add the number of drilled wells in town so as to improve its overall quality.  He also notes that the City Council has approved the zoning requests from DeKalb County for the expansion of the jail; this will require permanently blocking off one street, and expansion of others to handle the size of the new building...and the resultant traffic.

 

He also discussed the effort to attract more customers to the central business district.  The city is working on improving the visibility of signage downtown; he says people think nothing of parking a long distance from the front of big-box store, because they can see it as they walk up -- but if people can't spot a store in the more compact downtown shopping area, they just won't go.  Sycamore hopes to make the presence of local businesses more obvious, and point up the convenience of shopping there.