To ensure that future development in our community builds on the successes of the past seven years, City planners have embarked on two simultaneous master planning projects. This year, Planning will complete a Master Plan for the Northwest Quadrant of the city, the last major undeveloped area in Salt Lake City. We will also reexamine and, if needed, update the Downtown Master Plan. This process will take into account downtown development, the extension of light rail to the Intermodal Hub, the construction of commuter rail, and ongoing mixed-use development in the Gateway District. City planners will also seek to secure funding for the preparation of a comprehensive citywide preservation plan, which will begin in early 2007. We are confident George Shaw, our able new Planning Director, will bring his wealth of talents and expertise to these initiatives to serve the best interests of present and future City residents.

Children should, of course, be at the center of any discussion of progress and the future.

Our achievements, institutions, and resources are in trust for them. Their creativity, ingenuity, and optimism must be developed to meet the challenges of the future.

Through the brilliant leadership and generous spirit of Janet Wolf, along with Kim Thomas, Angela Romero, and many other staff, YouthCity has offered unprecedented artistic, cultural, and educational resources to our city�s young people. Given the demand for after school activities and enrichment, YouthCity has provided an incomparable service to Salt Lake City. In understanding "family values" straightforwardly, as ideas, approaches, and programs that actually help families, YouthCity programs deserve every measure of our support and appreciation as the most "pro-family" initiatives in Salt Lake City government. Although some, inexplicably, have called for regress and have refused to support youth programs, our astounding YouthCity team has forged ahead, demonstrating immense, life-altering progress every year.

YouthCity has raised over $4 million in addition to the modest support from the City Council to create a dazzling array of programs and refurbishing three decaying City buildings. YouthCity presently includes the YouthCity Government program, which provides a vastly expanded vital civics and service experience to students from every high school in the city; and the Workplace Mentoring Program at Horizonte, which allows students to explore a variety of occupations through hands-on learning, mentoring, and job-shadowing experiences. One hundred percent of Mentoring Program graduates have proceeded to graduate from high school, and all eight of last year�s participants received scholarships to Salt Lake Community College.

YouthCity Artways has provided innovative arts education and programming to reach tens of thousands of children and their families. The program is a two-time semifinalist for the NEA�s "Coming Up Taller" awards, and brought the phenomenal Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration, a nationally acclaimed performing arts festival, to Salt Lake City. YouthCity Artways has improved the fabric of performing arts in our city and has enlivened our public spaces, with murals throughout the city and productions like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.