Former Mayor and City Council Member, Colleen Briscoe, has received the 2022 Jeanne & John G. McCoy Community Service Award from the New Albany Community Foundation. During Briscoe’s 26 years of public service, New Albany grew to nearly 11,000 residents and built one of the region’s fastest growing business parks, home to industry leaders including Abercrombie & Fitch, American Electric Power, Google, Lower.com and Meta, with Amgen and Intel under construction. “During New Albany’s years of rapid transformation, Colleen guided the community and made it a better place,” noted Craig Mohre, president of the foundation.

After she was elected Mayor in 1996, Briscoe not only fulfilled her pledge to pursue well-managed growth, but also helped revitalize the historic village center and spur commercial development to enlarge the tax base and create economic sustainability. With its small population and tax base, New Albany then had few resources to build the infrastructure needed for commercial development. According to Briscoe, it committed to pay those costs “only from the income produced from the business campus,” she said. “That was the first arrangement we made and, obviously, it worked very well,”

To ease financial growing pains as local school enrollment expanded, she helped pass a resolution ensuring that new, for-profit development would translate into funding for the schools and necessary infrastructure improvements. She also promoted expansion of community amenities, including parks and walking trails.

The Jeanne and John G. McCoy Community Service Award was established in 2004 to recognize citizens who have made a significant impact in the community through their leadership, generosity and volunteerism. Through their philanthropy and community service in New Albany and central Ohio, Jeanne and John G. McCoy embodied the spirit of this award and were the first to be honored with the distinction in 2004 when it was established in their name.