August 19, 2025 

City Manager Pamela Reece

A primary tenet of the Town of Normal is that we "plan our work and work our plan." This value permeates our work and has been the foundation of my 30+ years at the Town.

This issue provides updates on the Town's Strategic Plan, as well as the progress we've made on the Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan. I'm proud of the work we've done to keep the Town of Normal moving forward.

Recent Council actions support other of the Town's plans, including the Comprehensive Plan and the Vision 2050 Sustainability Plan. Read on to learn more. 

We recently welcomed Illinois State University and Heartland Community College students as the fall semester begins to unfold. We're excited about the energy they bring to our community. 

Summer's not over just yet ... this weekend is the annual Sweet Corn Circus. I'll see you in Uptown Normal for this all-ages festival celebrating our circus and agricultural roots. Don't miss the Gamma Phi Circus, the wrestlers, the vendors and more! Did I mention the corn? Sweet corn: it's the golden ticket to community smiles!

On Aug. 18, Town staff presented an update on The Town of Normal Strategic Plan.

The plan, implemented in 2023, provides a long-term road map for the Town and includes 28 goals under four strategic priority areas. Many plan goals are long-range efforts. Of the 28 goals in the plan, four are complete, 13 are in progress, seven are ongoing and four are not yet started. 

Completed goals include:

The Town approved the Vision 2050 Sustainability Plan in 2024. The plan outlines sustainability guidelines in seven priority areas.

On Aug. 18, Council took the following actions:

To learn more, read the Aug. 18 Council Action Reports.

The Town of Normal will replace old, decaying signs in public facilities and improve aesthetics and wayfinding for park users with updated park and park amenity signs. 

The effort is Phase 2 of a four-year, five-phase plan which kicked off earlier this year with the renaming of the Karraker Aquatic Center.

The Town of Normal is proud to offer high-quality bicycle and pedestrian facilities for residents and visitors.

In 2020, the Town approved a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan to ensure the community continues to improve bicycle and pedestrian amenities. In the Vision 2050 Sustainability survey, nearly 40% of residents said they want the Town to design streets to be bike and pedestrian friendly. 

Here are some highlights of progress made since the plan's adoption five years ago:

Companies, including Frontier Internet, have been installing fiber-optic cable in Normal. You may see workers in your neighborhood installing fiber via public easements. These workers are not Town of Normal employees; they are contractual staff hired by the private companies. 

Running fiber in a community helps make the internet faster and more reliable. Companies do this because it allows everyone, including families, schools and businesses, to use the internet more easily. 

A public easement allows utility companies to use a small part of land for important services ... like electricity, water or internet. Easements are typically created before homes are first built. 

So even if a piece of land looks private ... like your front yard or the strip between the sidewalk and street ... legal rights let utility workers come onto it to install or fix lines and pipes. They’re not there to snoop; they’re just doing their job to keep things running for the whole community. 

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Thank you for being part of our community! We want to hear from you! Let us know how we're doing and what you'd like to see in future editions of Normal Now.