Decatur Next

Decatur Diary | November 13, 2015

Residents Turn Out for First Look at Action Plan Directives

Decatur residents got their first look at the 71 action items comprising the bulk of the city’s emerging Community Action Plan Thursday evening during a spirited gathering of over 100 participants.

Beginning with a broad community discussion last August and further engaging residents through an online survey and various small-group conversations, the Better Together process has been a reflective and interactive opportunity to consider how we, as a community, excel (or fail) in our efforts to relate to and accommodate one another.

BT-GroupWorking from roughly 400 ideas submitted during the process, the consultant team distilled the list to 71 proposed action items which were then presented to the crowd Thursday evening via individual cards. Those cards became the subject of discussions in pairs as participants, moving from person to person over the evening, assessed and ranked each one.

The result was an overall review of proposed action items, with some emerging as top ideas, which will subsequently inform the content of the narrative plan set for presentation to the city commission next month.

HOW IT ALL COMES TOGETHER

Better Together began not just as a process to explore Decatur’s diversity-related challenges but, more importantly, to collectively determine what we might do about them. As such, the action items presented Thursday evening comprise the vast majority of what will constitute the ultimate Community Action Plan.

Those ideas, now vetted and ranked by the crowd last night, present the answer to our original question: What are proactive things we can do about the community challenges we face?

The remainder of the formal plan — to be presented to the city commission in December — will include:

  1. An executive summary of the Better Together findings.
  2. A narrative description of the process overall, comparable to the summary presented during the meeting and reflective of the chronicling included here on Decatur Next.
  3. The action items themselves, highlighting last night’s top ideas.
  4. Who’s ultimately responsible for each action item — individuals, organizations, partnerships, or government?

WHAT’S NEXT

Working from the community input provided Thursday evening, the consultant team will adjust and highlight the action items for a progress update to the city commission this coming Monday the 16th. That list will be made available here on Decatur Next for resident review and comment.

From those comments will come the concluding draft which will be presented to the commission at their December 7 meeting. The commission will then make the choice whether to act on the Plan that evening or to defer for further consideration.

 

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