Student retention and safer routes to healthier foods highlighted conversations during the Emporia City Commission study session Wednesday.
Emporia State University President Allison Garrett opened the session by updating commissioners on the happenings around ESU. The presentation included information regarding the university’s community service, which according to Garrett, students and faculty had put in well over 12,000 hours in the last year.
Garrett’s update also included information on student retention, which was the highest in school history this year. Garrett attributes this to the abundance of staff and resources available to their students.
This year also saw a seven percent increase in incoming freshmen as well as a 36 percent increase in new graduate students.
In other business, Daphne Mertens of Healthier Lyon County was in attendance to discuss their Safe Routes to Healthy Foods and new bike sharing programs. Safe Routes to Healthy Food is a public resolution that, if adopted, would place an emphasis on city infrastructures such as sidewalks, bike lanes and sharrows to help residents get to healthy food sources.
The initiative would be funded by Healthier Lyon County’s Blue Cross Blue Shield Pathways to a Healthy Kansas Grant. Mertens says their first focus will be installing sidewalks at Dillon’s Grocery Store and Good’s Cash Saver.
The bike sharing program is a separate, yet still connected, initiative which will see bikes made available for visitors and residents alike. Residents will have the ability to utilize the bikes for grocery shopping while visitors can use it to ride around and see Emporia.
Individuals will be able to check out the bikes from one of six locations through a smartphone app. Both items will be on the agenda for the city’s action session next week.
Also during the meeting, commissioners held discussions on economic development, free dump days and reviewed the new Land Bank list. Discussions on seamless data renewal and a review of commission goals also took place.
The Lyon County Commission will next meet Wednesday, April 3 at 1:30 pm inside the Municipal Courtroom at White Auditorium.
