Small Town Alabama
Creating Quality Communities in Alabama: The Alabama Communities of Excellence Program
By Lee Burlett
One of the best ways to find a great site for business and industry in the rural South is to narrow your search to communities that have met standards required to be certified by the various state supported community development programs. Some that come to mind are the Mississippi Governor's Community Projects of Excellence Awards and Tennessee's Three Star Program.
Not to be outdone, Alabama also has an outstanding community development program called ACE, or the Alabama Communities of Excellence. ACE is a comprehensive three-phase approach to economic and community development for cities with populations between 2,000 and 18,000. With the mission of helping Alabama's smaller communities to plan, grow and prosper, ACE partners with the private sector, governmental agencies and universities. Together, they work with each community to successfully achieve the vision and goals created during the ACE program.
ACE was established in 2002. Linda Swann, the current Director of The Alabama Development Office is the organization's past president. "ACE works with small communities across the state to assist the communities in planning and preparing for a more vibrant future. It is kind of a one-stop shop for community development," Swann said.
Stacey Bryan, State Coordinator for ACE, said that the program helps make communities better, but it is certainly not a cookie-cutter approach. "We found that there are three things that help make a better community and the first is an assessment phase where we take a team of economic and community development professionals into the community and look at the community with fresh eyes. What we then do is make observations and recommendations. Those recommendations are then presented back to community to use as a building block as they go into the second phase, which focuses on strategic planning, leadership development and also the creation of a 501c organization," Bryan said.
One of the more important aspects of the ACE program is developing leadership in the community. "It is so important for the communities to have a vision that has broad-based support. We also feel like you have to develop leaders in the community and not only adult leaders; youth leadership is also an important component."
From there, phase three is implemented and it focuses on comprehensive planning, which takes the vision of the community into more detailed aspects of the program such as specifics on structure, infrastructure and then zoning -- an up to date, comprehensive land use plan.
"There are many components to a healthy, strong community," Bryan said. "ACE looks at all of those components whether they be education, access to healthcare, the recruitment and retention of businesses or quality of life. What we try and do is help these communities develop a plan to improve the development of all of those components."
Once a community completes the three-phase program and "graduates" they receive a grant that can be used for one of the community development projects that they have identified in their strategic plan. Sixteen communities have been designated as Alabama Communities of Excellence: Atmore, Brewton, Demopolis, Evergreen, Fayette, Guin, Gulf Shores, Guntersville, Haleyville, Headland, Heflin, Jackson, Millbrook, Monroeville, Thomasville and Valley, Ala.
Thirteen other communities are currently participating in the program: Arab, Childersburg, Cullman, Eufaula, Foley, Graysville, Hartselle, Jacksonville, Leeds, Livingston, Montevallo, Tarrant and Winfield.
Brewton, Ala., one of the first graduates of the Alabama Communities of Excellence program, continues to form committees of volunteers from the community and has developed initiatives as diverse as an obesity task force to a community garden.
This article is sponsored by TVA and Alabama Power.