RIPON — There are 350 families that were able to purchase homes with the help of Redevelopment Agency funding and thanks to the tireless efforts of the city’s RDA specialist Sheryl Prater.

Prater was the focus of a retirement luncheon Monday noon at the Canal Street Grill restaurant after 25 years of service to the city.  A staff resembling “family” was on hand to say their goodbyes and to wish her well.

“I thought I was just going to a potluck in the back room,” she chuckled about the luncheon.

Her position was done away with recently after the RDA ceased to function due to the state’s decision to pull the plug and grab funds. 

Mayor Red Nutt and two other city council members, Garry Krebbs and Dean Uecker, joined staff members and department heads in honoring Prater.

It was in August some 25 years ago that she joined the city staff as recording secretary, later becoming a more valued secretary at city hall.  Prater was named a development specialist 10 years ago.  She noted Monday that she had first worked in the old wooden city hall that is now used as a military museum situated on First Street near the center of the downtown.

She was the director of the RDA program in 1995 as well as the GAP program that was formed later in 2001 otherwise known as the (BMR) Below Market Rate Housing that filled the financial gap in available lending.   

She said the highlight of her tenure came with the housing program where she witnessed may families getting new homes that they otherwise could not have afforded.

There are now a total of eight unoccupied homes in the community because of the status of RDA and even more are occupied and can’t be sold or refinanced because of liens on the properties by the frozen RDA ownership.

The city has hired landscapers to care for the plants and trees to keep them from dying during the hot summer months. 

“It’s not our obligation, but it is our community,” city planning director Ken Zuidervaart said of the upkeep.   And while the landscaper comes only every two weeks, city planning commissioner Mark Winchell has picked up the slack to make sure several of the new homes on Second Street are getting the water they need.