Citizens asked to give vision of Forsyth's future
Liz Alverson
08/31/06
Organizers of Envision 2030, the citizen-led community visioning initiative that will ask participants to imagine Forsyth County in 25 years, announced the dates and locations of the eight meetings that will take place this fall.
"These meetings will be different from the usual planning process," said Carter Barrett, Envision 2030 co-chairman. "Everyone will be invited, and everyone will have an opportunity to offer their ideas."
The meeting locations are spread across the county in order for "all citizens have an opportunity to participate at a convenient location," said Barrett. The locations include all of Forsyth's middle schools, Cumming First United Methodist Church and Chestatee Elementary School.
Over the next few months, Barrett said, each of the eight fall vision meetings will be followed by a report, including a list of the ideas from that meeting. The report will be posted on the Envision 2030 web site, www.envision2030.com.
At the end of the eight meetings, the community's ideas will be used to draft a common vision for Cumming-Forsyth County and the public will be invited to review and comment on the vision document before it is made final. The 27-member Envision 2030 steering committee will also review the draft.
"These meetings are very important because we are starting with no pre-conceived ideas about what citizens want Cumming-Forsyth County to be in the future," Barrett said.
Once the community phase is completed, Envision 2030 will move into a second phase, Envision Co-chairman Brett Berto said. A number of planning groups will take the reports from the community meetings and turn them into a strategic plan.
"The openness and transparency of the process will help us create a stronger plan that will not sit on a shelf and collect dust," said Berto.
Otis White of Civic Strategies, the same man who helped Gainesville with its visioning, will facilitate the Forsyth meetings.
"Rarely, in community planning, are people encouraged to think about where we want to end up," said White. He noted author Stephen Covey in his book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People says begin any project with the end in mind.
White said this is a different kind of planning that asks the community what they want not how they want to get there. The "how" will follow later, he said. This type of planning process "gets people over the hump" in planning.
People tend to disagree on the path to get to where they are going, but agreeing on what the community wants things to look like by the year 2030 narrows the disagreement, White said.
Once the community agrees on what it wants, it unlocks the creativity of planners and other decision makers. He said citizens typically want to go farther and faster in planning than elected officials do. But the visioning process can be very liberating for elected officials when they know they are doing what the community wants.
By way of example, he said the citizens of Rome, Ga., during their community visioning process, decided they wanted a minor league baseball field.
"I'll be darned if they don't have one. They brought the Rome Braves there," said White. He said visioning helps a community come to life.
White said all Forsyth County community stakeholders should plan to attend one the eight meetings and participate in a work group of their own choice.
The Cumming-Forsyth Chamber of Commerce assembled the initial leadership summit that was the catalyst behind Envision 2030.
"The collective mind of a 1,000 people can come up with a plan they can be proud of," said chamber CEO James McCoy.
Envision 2030's final report will be available in June 2007. | | Related Link
www.northfulton.com
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