Queen Creek town departments honored for their work

Four town departments that recently received accolades from industry groups have been recognized by the Queen Creek Town Council.

At its Nov. 20 meeting, the council recognized the town’s communications and marketing division after it was honored with four awards from the Public Relations Society of America-Phoenix Chapter.

The division won for its branding of the town’s new parks, a proclamation honoring Super Bowl quarterback and Queen Creek native Brock Purdy, a brochure touting investment in the town and its communications plan for the launch of a new utility billing system.

“Our town’s communications and marketing division works very hard to ensure that our town services and programs are communicated effectively to all our residents,” Mayor Julia Wheatley said during the meeting.

The Queen Creek traffic engineering division earned the Intelligent Transportation System Society’s Innovation Award for its implementation of a town-wide system of traffic detection technologies.

“The project allows the town to make traffic-signal timing changes in real time,” Wheatley said. “With an automated feature, this will create increased traffic flow efficiency, improved equipment reliability, enhanced performance measures and the potential to improve traffic safety and traffic distribution.”

The town’s trash and recycling program received the Municipality of the Year Award from the Arizona chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America.

The team was recognized for introducing several new initiatives this year, including conducting a paperless residential waste cart inventory using tags and scanning technologies. It was also honored for introducing fast passes at Queen Creek’s drive-thru recycling events, piloting a glass recycling program at the downtown recycling center and expanding Earth Month community communications and education programs.

Finally, the town’s economic development department received the Arizona Association for Economic Development’s Golden Prospector Deal the Year Award in partnership with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

The department and GPEC were honored for their efforts in attracting South Korean electric vehicle battery manufacturer, LG Energy Solution, to Queen Creek.

“After a national search involving multiple regions in North America, LG Energy Solution announced its historic $3.2 billion investment in Queen Creek in March of last year,” Wheatley said. “LG will manufacture batteries for electric vehicles on 110 acres of land and they plan to hire nearly 3,000 employees.”

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org.