Thursday the city of Rushville hosted the annual Five Cities Prosperity Summit at the 201 Building.
“The Prosperity Summit was an effort to create a dialogue between those cities and counties that we identify as our region of most impact,” Mayor Mike Pavey said. “The hope is that the dialogue will lead to mutual benefit to those who participated.”
Geenfield, Greensburg, New Castle, Shelbyville and Rushville each had their mayor at the summit to represent their community.
“I was very pleased with the results of the inaugural Summit,” Pavey said. “We had the right people in the same room enthusiastically exchanging ideas. I think the fact Tom DeBaun, Shelbyville’s Mayor, agreed to host the second annual Summit shows the value that was found in the event.”
Each mayor presented on a topic where they were identified as being a regional leader.
The Summit included a host of high profile guest speakers on independent topics as well as those associated with each community.
The mayors spoke of:
-Greenfield Mayor Chuck Fewell: Housing and Commercial Property development
-Shelbyville Mayor Tom DeBaun: Economic Development
-Rushville Mayor Mike Pavey: Public, Private, Partnerships (P3)
-New Castle Greg York: Education
-Greensburg-Gary Herbert: Regionalism
Pavey stated that politics and political affiliations were not a factor at the meeting.
Rushville’s presentation focused on the Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI) and 1150 Coding Academy.
“Any time you host an event of this scale and significance, it is a logistics challenge,” Pavey said. “We need to thank numerous people, without their help such a successful event would not have been possible.”