Perry City Administrator Sven Peterson speaks on the strategies the city is using to help residents.

Peterson tells Raccoon Valley Radio that PerryNext is a community effort of many organizations coming together to focus on the future of Perry. He acknowledges the hardships the community has gone through with the January 4th shooting at Perry High School and the closure of the Tyson Foods Pork Plant. 

“Really taking it as an opportunity to step back, do some visioning, do a lot of community outreach and gathering as much input and information as we can from the community of what the community’s vision is for the next few years of Perry.”

Peterson recalls that on July 26th, one of PerryNext’s efforts was assisting students at Perry High School.

“Drake University is one of our partners with Jay. N Darling Institute for rural sustainability. They helped host a series of focus groups with different core areas of educators, community members, (and) support services.”

Peterson says that positive feedback came from out of the focus groups and reveals that it is the first step into helping guide the city with future decisions.