COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
Troy 100 Forum brings community together
TROY, N.Y. >> Leaders of Troy’s business, political, community, educational, religious and cultural communities came together for the Troy 100 Forum, at The Sage Colleges Bush Memorial Hall. Appropriately enough, the theme Monday night’s event was, “Building Our City Together.”
Each of the four speakers, between Mayor Patrick Madden, Elizabeth Reiss, from The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Dylan Hall from One Troy and Denise Figueroa, from The Think Differently Campaign, emphasized that theme and threaded together goals of inclusiveness, beautifying Troy and lifting up neighborhoods.
“I’m blown away by the number of groups, organizations, committees, and individuals that are working day in and day out to build a better Troy,” Mayor Madden said.
“Your expertise, your passion, your insight, are all important to the decisions we are called upon to make on a daily basis.
We are creating City of Troy plans, we are trying to create a “we built” community, as in “we built it together.” From day one we have embraced a building together philosophy,” Mayor Madden added.
In an effort to beautify Troy, Reiss stressed the need of Troy’s public art plan to make the surroundings more beautiful and add more murals.
“The vision of the master plan is meant to be a community project, a civic dialogue, there’s a lot of ways of doing public art, you can make a spectacle project, you can make lit things people come from all of the world to see, you can do things that are by the community, of the community and for the community and that’s where this plan is going to start, with projects like that, so we’re excited to see what will happen,” Reiss said in outlining the goals of the plan.
“One Troy will work with the after- school program of School 2 and the kids will decide their public art project,” Reiss added of the collaborative project. “They’ll decide what they want to do on their street or in their neighborhood.”
Reiss also spoke about a potential project involving Franklin Alley. “What we’re looking to do is bring an artist named Joe Iurato, he develops characters based on stories that he hears in the community and then he punctuates whatever architectural detail he is working with, with these characters, so they may peak out of windows, they may peak out of doors, they may be on top of a rooftop or however it may be and it’s meant to marry the architectural details, not overwhelm them,” Reiss said in conceptualizing the plan.
Hall spoke about reducing Troy’s poverty rate, which has risen by 48% in the past two years.
“We have two neigh- borhoods we’re investing $730,000 in projects which are strengthening our existing efforts and if there’s a gap, we’re trying to reach 200 youth for after- school opportunities in the North Central and Hillside communities that didn’t have those opportunities before in those areas,” Hall said.
“The vision is over 10 years, can we see a reduction in poverty of 20%?” Hall added.
Figueroa spoke to the need of changing attitudes and making for an all-inclusive Troy for those with disabilities.
“Our goal is to promote independence and dignity for people with disabilities and to change our community so that it is accepting for people with disabilities, not only physically but in terms of attitudes and awareness,” Figueroa said. “What we want is a community that is welcoming to everyone, so this initiative is to start educating businesses about people with disabilities, about the fact that we are a part of the community. Sometimes businesses make their buildings accessible but don’t necessarily understand the needs of people with disabilities.”
Inclusiveness and engagement is something Mayor Madden also stressed.
“Don’t take your ball and go home, don’t go rant against the “evil empire” on social media, building anything together is about listening, compromising and advocating in equal measure, which, when you deploy at any given moment is an art and like any other art form you get better with practice,” Mayor Madden said of the need for open and constructive dialogue. “Stay in the game and work for what is important to you. I am enthusiastically optimistic about the future of Troy and the primary reason is you,” Mayor Madden added.