In the past, the City of Hickory had a staff position called “Neighborhood Liaison”. The position has since been rolled into part of the Planning Director’s job, and this is a terrible loss for the residents of Hickory.
The job of a Neighborhood Liaison is as follows:
1: Meets daily with citizens and community leaders, neighborhood organizations, and serves as a liaison between City Departments.
2. Plans, promotes, and assists in the administration of neighborhood outreach programs and services to improve or maintain the quality of life in city neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods are the building blocks of a city, and the liaison ensured that our neighborhoods were taken care of, and that their needs were heard. We can look around now and see that many of our neighborhoods have been forgotten and some are even quite dangerous.
We should ask that this position be reinstated, as a stand-alone position, and not part of the job of the Planning Director so that the health of our neighborhoods can be ensured.
