Mayor's Blog
“The raising of extraordinarily large sums of money, given voluntarily and freely by millions of our fellow Americans, is a unique American tradition.
President John F. Kennedy
Recently, I was asked by a visitor to our city how Jasper was doing. My response was, “We are an extraordinary city in the midst of extraordinary times!”
In the last four years, our employers have invested tens of millions of dollars into existing facilities or new complexes creating hundreds of new jobs. At the same time, through vision, public input, planning Jasper has attracted the interest of many other companies and organizations who desire to invest in housing and commercial space.
All this activity has brought forth significant charitable partners who are willing to offer their own money towards key public projects – something which has happened in Jasper often. The Krempp Gallery, the Arnold F. Habig Center and Ruxer Golf Course have all occurred due to private gifts. The City received the Jasper Riverwalk and Dave Buehler Plaza and contributions from the Seger families made Central Green and The Parklands of Jasper possible just to name a few.
Recently, Jim and Pat Thyen provided a challenge gift of $1.7M towards the arts including the proposed Jasper Cultural Center, the Astra, the current Jasper Arts Center and future programming. This helped to create an $8M community fund drive called Jasper LEADs – Library Enrichment Arts Downtown – with the goal of accomplishing these projects. Learn more and donate at: www.jasperleads.org Thank you to the Thyen family and to all who have made gifts so far. These are truly extraordinary times!
Mayor Seitz
