Charly in charge

By IAN MINIELLY

[email protected]

Bessemer — New Bessemer city manager Charly Loper met with the Daily Globe on Friday to discuss her past, the current situation, and the future of Bessemer. Before taking the city manager position in Bessemer, Charly knew she wanted a community where she could put her stamp on the area and make a difference. When she visited Bessemer and saw the area first hand, she knew it was the right fit.

As a college student at Central Michigan University, Loper developed a passion for governance and signed up for a semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. While there she saw first hand the role of city management and planning and grew confident she had found her future. Upon graduating she moved to Anaconda-Deer Lodge county of Montana under the AmeriCorp VISTA program, a program initially introduced to congress in 1963 under the Kennedy Administration.

The VISTA program is designed to take people and put them in the most poverty stricken areas where they can make a difference strategically. Interestingly one of the features of the VISTA program is the people enrolled in it set up the logistics, design the program, initiate the outreach and build capacity within the community they are working, so the community actually does much of the work themselves.

Both the semester abroad and VISTA program have instilled the confidence and team-building skills that make Loper confident, as city manager in Bessemer much will be done. This begins with the Master Plan, which Loper expects will be complete and finalized by 2018. Within the master plan different ideas and community involvement occur to propel Bessemer in the direction the community wants and those ideas are implemented immediately, they do not require waiting until the plan is finalized in 2018. Loper intends to take into consideration the unique features, challenges and positives interacting within the community that have led to unemployment and under-employment.

One element Loper identified within Bessemer is the natural beauty and physical draw the environment provides for tourists. Enhancing the draw to bring out of area visitors and dollars is important. Loper said she “is excited to be working for the city of Bessemer and its citizens.” She has an open door policy for Bessemer residents that would like to discuss the city and way ahead. With her closest family only six hours away in Bel-Air, Bessemer marks the closest she has been home in years.