City Council

About City Council

These initiatives will be accomplished through:

• City Services: To deliver efficient and professional services to the citizens of Palestine without bias or prejudice; while promoting the City’s core values, priorities and policies.
• Our Employees: Recognizing that our employees are our most valuable asset, we will provide them with a safe, clean, professional, and productive, workplace, where we encourage humility, productivity, and accountability for the quality of their work and where they are given significant opportunities for professional growth and development. 
• Communications: To be accessible to all people in our diverse community, including our fellow employees, to answer their questions promptly, to listen respectfully, and, in all of our communications, to be truthful, respectful, responsive, and professional.
• Trust: We realize the perception of our organization is dependent upon the public’s confidence in our commitment to our core values, service delivery, and meeting the goals set collectively by the Mayor and Council. 
• Financial Management: To be effective, efficient, and conscientious stewards of public resources. To wisely and vigilantly use these resources for the public good, and to where we will be held accountable to those who have placed their confidence in us. To provide visionary leadership in policy-making to enable the city to provide quality services to our diverse community at reasonable rates.
• The Law: To respect the law through our external and internal communications, by enforcing and abiding by all applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Residential, Commercial, and Recreational Spaces will be safe, clean, and accessible. 

• Our police officers will continue to engage with our citizens in order to develop and maintain open communication and trust within the community.
• We will educate and encourage our citizens to “community-police” by taking a vested interest in their own neighborhood, thereby fostering community pride and developing intolerance for littered streets, disruptive conduct, and criminal activities.
• We will explore initiatives that will improve the health, safety, and security of our citizens.

The City will create conditions that encourage a vibrant economy throughout the City.

• We will effectively market the advantages of opening a business in the City.
• We will assist businesses wanting to expand or relocate to Palestine. 
• We will provide quality infrastructure and a quality educational setting that will attract more businesses to the area.

Continue to make Palestine a tourist, cultural & social destination.

• We will work with business leaders and non-profits to improve and endorse our historical and cultural assets.
• We will encourage the development of attractive and distinctive districts in downtown Palestine that are within walking distance and that are appealing to citizens and tourists alike.
• We will effectively market our tourist attractions to markets beyond Anderson County.

Palestine will grow as a City; our citizens strive to reach their full potential through education, commerce, culture, and recreation.

• We will provide quality and accessible educational, business-related, cultural, and recreational resources for our citizens. 
• We will cultivate an empowering environment charged with optimism, initiative, and energy so that diverse citizens can pursue diverse goals with vigor, humility, and determination.

Guiding Principles

• Respect
• Sincerity
• Honesty
• Dignity
• Confidentiality
• Trust
• Appreciation
• Recognition
• Dependability
• Courtesy
• Attentiveness
• Acknowledgment
• Teamwork