@tomaskassahun
The City of Clovis honored Pamela Kallsen and Vongsavanh Mouanoutoua for their years of service on the planning commission and awarded them plaques at the Clovis City Council meeting on Monday, Jan. 9.
“The City of Clovis is such an outstanding community. It has been an honor to work alongside all of the leaders as well as the community,” Kallsen said. “The greatest honor was to be able to hear all the community come forward with either their concerns or their support to different projects that are going on in the city of Clovis.”
Kallsen served on the planning commission for the past three years.
“Working alongside [Mouanoutoua] and others in the commission was such a great experience. We made a lot of hard difficult decisions, but ours was only that conduit to the city council,” Kallsen said. “We took our jobs seriously because it affects people in their way of life. I’m privileged that I got to sit there for three years and be part of all of it.”
Kallsen hopes to see more citizens get involved in the planning commision.
“I would encourage a lot of other people to step forward and participate in being a part of the planning commision or any part of the city of Clovis where they can volunteer their time to help,” she said.
Mouanoutoua served on the planning commission from 2006-2016. He credits his success to the leadership from the city council.
“They have faith in regular citizens to serve the community. The leadership allows the citizens to grow and serve the rest of the public,” he said. “Planning commissioners aren’t elected. They’re appointed. They’re just regular citizens. They have no political experience, nothing. The planning commission is really just for regular folks to see how they want to make decisions in planning.”