 Welcome to City View, where we give you an inside view of the City of Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Yutzi. In our top story, we bring you the press conference where our Community Development Department recently kicked off the City Lender 1 Uplift program. Mayor Steve Benjamin, along with other city officials, were there to make the announcement. The importance of focusing on affordable housing and workforce housing and making sure we support the redevelopment of more public housing is because you want to be a city that reflects the great strength of diversity, that people who live in this city or work in the city ought to be able to live in the city. We ought to be using the levers that we have under our control, using community development block grant dollars from the federal government but also general fund dollars to continue to be creative and innovative in trying to find more and more solutions to creating good housing here in the city. The City's Office of Business Opportunities recently held commercial retention and we development workshops for small business owners. We went very quickly through pretty much the whole process of the program, having a meeting on site, establishing what your improvements are going to be, what's entailed in writing the specs, getting it out to bid, pulling together the package, submitting it, getting it approved and then actually doing the construction. So it's been very busy, we had a very interactive class, a lot of great, great questions. The City's Planning and Development Services Team are continuing their efforts to spread the word about Columbia Compass Envision 2036 during public open house sessions. We've gotten a lot of feedback from a lot of people and there's been a whole diverse set of different implementation strategies people want to see. Obviously the river front keeps coming up, they want to see really responsible development along the river front. Redoing our corridors is a big one, is sort of making sure everything's walkable and everything is safe. We're still getting feedback, we're doing a survey online, you can go to columbiaccompass.org to take that. And then so after these sort of round of meetings, we're going to be putting together sort of the final draft of the plan and we're going to be putting that out to folks here in a couple months. And as we continue to develop our city, we're always excited about new businesses opening in our city. Hendricks in downtown Columbia recently held their ribbon cutting ceremony and Mayor C. Benjamin was there to welcome the new opening of a new business. Columbia is a city rich in traditions and the Harambe Festival has been held for the past 30 years here in Columbia. Councilman Ed McDowell recently presented a proclamation to Dr. George Devlin at Benedict College who founded the Harambe Festival 30 years ago. And speaking of traditions, for the past 15 years, the Auntie Karen Foundation has sponsored the Legends of Concert Series for which the city of Columbia has been a sponsor. This year, the Legends of Concert Series welcomed the famous Isley Brothers. Every year, prior to the concert, the Legends of Artists always sponsors a master class for local students. And this year, students at Eau Claire High School were given the benefit of meeting the Isley Brothers one-on-one. Well, Spring is almost in the air and the city of Columbia and Columbia Water were proud to be co-sponsors along with other partners for the Blue Thumb Landscaper Conference. In an annual tradition, Mayor Steve Benjamin, along with the American Red Cross, have sponsored the Columbia Lifesavers Blood Drive. This year was no different and city of Columbia employees lined up to give blood to help others in our community. It's always a positive environment when people are coming to do something for other people, to make a change in the community, whether it be big or small, whether that means you roll up your sleeve or you volunteer with a canteen, registration, that sort of thing. And we've seen quite a few people in here today. Well, that wraps up this episode of City View. Thank you for watching and stay tuned to City TV for all the latest news and updates about the city of Columbia. For additional information, you may also visit our website at columbiasc.net and make sure you follow us on our social media platforms on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And if you're looking for our shows on demand, you can always find them on the City of Columbia's YouTube channel. Again, thank you for watching and remember, we are Columbia.