EUTAW-For the City of Eutaw the future is now. The city has implemented an aggressive campaign to establish a future plan for their city’s economic and social development.

Eutaw Mayor Raymond Steele said the city recently held the first of four meetings to discuss ideas for the plan and was very happy with their early accomplishments.

“Last week we held a meeting where we invited our most aged citizens to come here to discuss the future plans for the City of Eutaw,” Steele said. “We had a great turnout even though there was a lot going on that week.”

Steele said the panel traded several positive ideas and also benefited greatly from free outside help.

“It was a good planning session,” Steele said. “Sandra Donaway from Alabama Power was there and she is the person in charge of helping us put the plan together at no cost to the city.”

Normally, to hire someone to aid in putting together a city plan the price would he high. Steele said it would probably run $10,000 expensive.

The idea of the future plan is to create a vision for the City of Eutaw for the next three to five years. Steele said if the city wished to draw interest from industry they needed to have a plan in place.

“Often times when developers come to a city they want to know whether or not the city has a plan in place,” Steele said. “They also want to know how much progress has been made so we need to get a plan together.”

Three upcoming meetings are planned for Nov. 8, 15 and 22. The meetings will be held at Eutaw City Hall and are scheduled to last from 8:30 until 11:30 a.m.

Steele said they planned to hear as much input as they could during the meetings to formulate a plan. He said by the end of November they hoped to be close to putting the finished product together.

“We are going to continue to work on this for the next three weeks,” Steele said. “Hopefully, at the end of those three weeks we will have a completed plan and be able to come back and discuss it.”

Steele also encouraged local leaders to show an interest and attend the meetings.

“This is very important,” Steele said. “I would like to encourage the council members if they can to attend the meetings. It would be good for them to take part in the planning sessions.”