Electronic Newsletter

City Manager's Corner

We Are Cocoa

Budget season is upon us. Staff and Council are hard at work identifying challenges and priorities that we must face as a community this upcoming year. We will be hosting a number of goal setting and budget priority workshops and we encourage all residents to be engaged in the process and provide input to City Council. A list of the upcoming budget and priority setting workshops are listed in this newsletter and I encourage all residents to come out and participate in the process.

Cocoa City Council approved the redrawn district lines in February. This process is required per city charter every ten years after the Census is complete. District lines are redrawn after every Census to ensure equal population amongst the districts within a 5% variance. Thanks to the citizen volunteer committee that took time to assist us in completing this process. You can read more about the process and the committee in this newsletter.

Citizens can now get more news from the City of Cocoa delivered right to their email inbox. We have begun a monthly e-newsletter, called the FYMI, that will provide news and features to residents on a more frequent basis. This monthly e-newsletter will have the latest news and include features such as a monthly survey and employee spotlight. You can register your email address by visiting https://www.cocoafl.org/list.aspx and get this new monthly feature.

The City of Cocoa has over 450 dedicated employees that work hard every day and take PRIDE in the services they provide to the citizens of Cocoa. That is why I thought it was important to start a new feature in our monthly e-newsletter and in our quarterly mailed newsletter spotlighting the fabulous employees of the City of Cocoa, which you can read more about on the cover this issue of the FYI newsletter. These features will not only spotlight what they do for the City of Cocoa but what these great individuals contribute to our community. Keep an eye out for this great new feature with our first spotlight featuring NeoDasha Harris, Leisure Services Coordinator. NeoDasha has served the citizens of Cocoa for nearly 16 years but also owns her own fashion design and event planning business. She is a doing mother to her son Dalyn, who is a freshman at Bethune Cookman University, and mentor to youth in our community.

As always, I want to thank each of our residents and business owners that work with us day in and day out to continually improve our services. Staff alongside City Council works hard everyday for all of our residents and as always, we won’t be deterred by the loud voice of one or two from our mission of providing exemplary services to all of our residents. Together, we will continue to make Cocoa a great place to live, work and play. Because together, we are Cocoa.

-Stockton Whitten, Cocoa City Manager