Opening for Visioning

This past weekend, the City Council met to do some goal setting. With the help of an MTAS representative, they conducted a mini-visioning process, and they seemed to hit upon some important goals that will make all of our lives better.

First, they talked a lot about communications. Communications among themselves, but, more importantly, communications between the city and us citizens. This need to keep the citizens informed about what the city thinks and what they plan on doing, combined with giving our representatives an accurate and complete view of what the the citizens think as they make plans for our future is the answer for much of the issues within Oak Ridge.

Second, they concluded that a citizens' visioning committee should be formed. This is exactly what we are looking for. This proposed committee will be our mechanism to introduce visioning into the city's ongoing planning process.

Communications is great, but communicating the community vision to the city provides all the other benefits that I have discussed as well. It provides an accurate sense of the will of the people to the city officials. It empowers those officials to make plans and decisions consistent with that vision. And perhaps most important, it gives the citizens a voice that is heard and an opportunity to work with other citizens to reach the consensus that forms the community vision statement and implementation plan.

Finally, the chance to put visioning processes into the ongoing city planning process will keep those benefits fresh and continuing. Let's let our City Council members know that we support community visioning in Oak Ridge and that we appreciate their insight by including it in their goal setting session. You can email all of the members of the City Council here and the City Manager, Jim O'Connor, here.