On December 7 of last year, Decatur’s city commission received the raw content of the proposed Community Action Plan, the end result of our year-long Better Together initiative. Accepted as-is, it was released for formatting as a formally laid-out document with completion expected early in the new year...

Decatur’s city commission accepted the comprehensive draft of the Better Together Community Action Plan Monday evening, bringing to a close a process that, outside 2010’s extensive Strategic Plan, brought more people to the table than any Decatur effort in the past 15 years...

On Monday night, December 7, at 7:30pm, a year’s worth of effort will come to a close as representatives of Decatur’s Better Together process present the city commission with a comprehensive draft of content for the Community Action Plan...

Decatur’s 2010 Strategic Plan set the intention -- that city residents value diversity in all its forms -- but it wasn’t until the past several months that that intention was put to the test in the form of the Better Together conversation, a community process working its way towards a formal Community Action Plan...

Last Thursday’s community review and consideration of the 71 action items (.pdf) comprising the emerging Better Together Community Action Plan provided the consultant team with a look at which proposed steps were considered by attendees to be most critical...

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...

On Saturday, August 29, more than 250 Decatur neighbors -- residents, students, business owners, retirees and others -- gathered in the Ebster Gym and devoted five hours of their day to a frank and focused conversation on diversity -- sharing their Decatur experience and listening as others did the same. The event marked the formal launch of the Better Together initiative, a substantive community conversation around the myriad differences -- in culture, race, age, abilities, politics, economic resources, and more -- that make us who we are...

For the past nine months, Better Together’s organizing committee -- called the Leadership Circle -- has been working to convene a broad community conversation around the myriad differences -- in culture, race, age, abilities, politics, economic resources, and more -- that make us who we are. This Saturday, August 29, from 10am-3pm, that conversation begins, as the now hundreds of registered Decatur residents meet in the gym of the Beacon Municipal Center and begin the process of finding common ground on challenging issues like fairness. Or inclusion. Or equity. Won’t you be one of them? All are welcome and encouraged to attend. Registrations are still being accepted here so please make plans to join us.

Decatur’s Better Together process is facilitating a substantive community conversation around the myriad differences -- in culture, race, age, abilities, politics, economic resources, and more -- that make us who we are. From it, we'll craft a substantive Community Action Plan filled with policy goals and other recommendations for implementing Principle B of Decatur's 2010 Strategic Plan: “Encourage a diverse and engaged community.” And now we’ve got the details on how you can get involved!