October 9th SLUUPA Event- East West Gateway
Friday, October 9th 5:30PM- Tegeler Hall
All are welcome to attend- free pizza for people who have paid annual SLUUPA dues of $10.
Please RSVP to the SLUUPA president for the event.
This will be a great opportunity to learn more about East-West Gateway, our metropolitan planning organization (MPO). They serve as the regional planning council for eight counties in Missouri and Illinois and their board of directors is made up of the regions’ chief elected officials. Find out how what goes on there affects your daily life and has a huge impact on the future on the region.
Where should the St. Louis region be in 25 years? You’ll have an opportunity to answer that question!
Maggie Hales (Interim Executive Director) of East West Gateway has offered to conduct a focus group to provide our own views on the future of St. Louis that can be incorporated into the long range plan they’re working on right now. Please take this opportunity to provide a fresh perspective and viewpoint of a younger generation and help make St. Louis a better place! For more information on the Renewing the Region initiative- click here.
East-West Gateway Council of Governments (EWG) was formed in 1965 to address regional planning issues around transportation, housing and other community planning issues. Later EWG was designated as the St. Louis region’s bi-state metropolitan planning organization (MPO) to assist local governments with deciding how to plan and spend federal transportation funds. Since its incorporation the agency has provided a forum for cooperative problem-solving and the coordinated development of regional policy.
As the MPO, EWG is required by federal law to develop a long range transportation plan every five years. The agency must look at economic development patterns, employment, regional fiscal health and a host of other issues to inform the plan. Federal transportation law requires a broader look, because the investments of transportation funds affects so many areas of our lives and can contribute to or hamper the quality of life in a metropolitan area.
The agency is engaging in discussions around the region over the next 8-9 months or so among citizens, business leaders, elected officials and others. The end result will be a set of guideposts written into the next long range plan (to be published in 2011). These guideposts will provide direction for investments of federal transportation funding that comes into the region every year. These discussions can really make a difference and this is your chance to get involved.
