What good is visioning?

If you concur that Oak Ridge is a divided community on most items of public discussion then I think I can describe the benefits of a broad based community visioning process. If you don't think that we are divided, then I would like to remind you of a few recent events.

• The development of Centennial Golf Course


• The bond referendum for the City Center Plan


• The bond referendum for the Crestpointe shopping center


• The Charter Commission referendum to revert to electing City Council members by district


• New facilities for our Senior Center

Each of these acts and the public reaction to them points to deep differences of opinion, sure. But they are also unresolved differences, even today. Some are ongoing but those that are not even likely to be revisited are often described as the basis of distrust or generalized bungling by city authority. They are the foundations of popular myths that have little factual relation to historical events.

Contrast that description with what a visioning process offers.

• Visioning finds common ground


• Visioning builds trust


• Visioning accentuates the positive possibilities


• Visioning finds future goals by consensus


• Visioning develops plans to reach our envisioned future

If people are talking about the next steps toward reaching our goals that we have defined for our community, there is little room for the negative, divisive remembrance of a distorted past. The City Council and the city administration will be able to plan actions that follow the vision statement and implement steps toward reaching our future without the worry of being second-guessed or delayed by the next referendum. If we are moving toward our desired future, those who oppose are not representative of the community and its agreements with itself.

These differences are like night and day.

But there is more...

The visioning process itself produces agreements but it also changes the community. We will learn through visioning that people with differences can still agree on a positive future. We will learn that people with whom we have had conflict can be trusted within our agreements. We will find that negotiations with people holding opposing views can yield the proverbial common ground. We will find that our city government can be trusted to implement those goals that the community has agreed are important.

And finally, perhaps the most important change is that the people most involved in the visioning process itself, those who spend months listening, compromising, and discovering the paths to agreement will be our city's foundation of the public leadership that will carry this new way of interacting forward. They are the ones who will know first hand how it all works and the pay off that we are missing today.

Visioning is not a one time event. Once our desired future is reached, there will always be another future that needs definition. It is truly a better way of conducting our city's business.