In a unanimous vote at their July 20 meeting, Decatur city commissioners officially endorsed the recommendations of the Better Together Leadership Circle, clearing the way for a broad community process to cultivate a more just, welcoming, inclusive, equitable and compassionate experience for all who visit, live or work in the City of Decatur. The culmination of the process will be the creation of a tangible Community Action Plan, spelling out specific recommendations for how the city or other resource organizations can, as directed in Principle B of the 2010 Strategic Plan, “encourage a diverse and engaged community...”

Principle B of 2010’s Strategic Plan instructs city leadership to “Encourage a diverse and engaged community.” So for the past eight months, a small group of Decatur volunteers has been meeting around the questions raised by such an ambition: What kind of public process would help the city accomplish this goal? How might it be orchestrated? How might our community effectively explore the myriad differences -- in culture, race, age, abilities, politics, or economic resources -- that make us who we are? On Monday, July 20, they’ll present their recommendations to city leaders in a public work session preceding the regularly scheduled commission meeting...

Because it's something fundamentally rooted in our relationships with each other, and explores the necessary means by which we can transcend the barriers that divide us, the Better Together process is being orchestrated as a volunteer, citizen-led endeavor, with the participation and support of the city. A collection of unpaid Decatur residents representing a diverse cross-section of the community, together with our police chief and a handful of city employees, are serving as the organizing committee. We're calling them the Leadership Circle...