Janet Pearson Share

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Janet Pear­son, orig­i­nal­ly from Fort Wayne, IN, moved to Mar­i­on in 1967. She is a grad­u­ate of Mar­i­on High School. Pear­son has been work­ing for the City of Mar­i­on for 13 years. She is the Deputy Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment Ser­vices. Her main tasks include man­ag­ing city-owned prop­er­ties, leas­ing park­ing spaces Down­town, work­ing with the Com­mon Coun­cil on the res­i­den­tial tax abate­ment pro­gram, and part­ner­ing with mul­ti­ple groups to devel­op and improve Mar­i­on. Pear­son works close­ly with the CReED Board assist­ing them with devel­op­ment projects with­in the CReED dis­trict through state fund­ing. She rep­re­sents the City of Mar­i­on as part of the Mar­i­on Rede­vel­op­ment Com­mis­sion by review­ing rede­vel­op­ment projects.

Over the past year, Pear­son has been work­ing close­ly with Thriv­ing Fam­i­lies, Thriv­ing Grant Coun­ty as part of the Qual­i­ty of Life Group, part­ner­ing with them to revi­tal­ize the 5^th Street Com­mons, Down­town, Mar­i­on. A crowd­fund­ing grant was achieved late last year to move the project for­ward. The 5^th Street Com­mons (between Wash­ing­ton & Adams Sts.) will not just be an improved park­ing lot, but will be able to be uti­lized as an event space with light­ing, seat­ing, and a stage.

In recent months, Pear­son has paired with Afford­able Hous­ing and their interns to ini­ti­ate pri­vate pur­chas­ing of remain­ing city-owned prop­er­ties by con­tact­ing home­own­ers adja­cent to the prop­er­ties. Since the ​“Prop­er­ty Pro­gram” began, Pear­son has worked dili­gent­ly to sell what was once about 900 prop­er­ties to about 300 remain­ing prop­er­ties, most of which are open lots. This effort is in its ear­ly stages, but aims to put many more prop­er­ties back on the tax rolls.

“Janet is one of those employ­ees every may­or wish­es they had on staff. She not only gives 110% when accom­plish­ing every day respon­si­bil­i­ties, but goes above and beyond what’s expect­ed to insure the City of Mar­i­on con­tin­ues to pro­vide out­stand­ing ser­vice to its cit­i­zens.” – May­or Jess Alumbaugh

Pear­son has also been a vol­un­teer ambas­sador with the Mar­i­on-Grant Coun­ty Cham­ber of Com­merce for near­ly 30 years, and serves on the Afford­able Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion Board.