Second Theme Group Working Session: What to Expect

Though the holiday season is now in full swing, the Chapel Hill 2020 will press forward with the second round of key theme group working sessions Thursday. The meetings will be held at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School on Smith Level Road from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. They promise to follow essentially the same format as the first round of meetings. The key difference is that before breaking off into seperate theme meetings, Town Manager Roger Stancil will give a presentation on the fiscal state of the town.

The focus of this round of meetings is to iron out some of the "big rock" issues that were discussed at the first report session on November 19. Some draft goals for each group have been drawn up based on the comments submitted at past meetings, and the idea is that these draft goals will be a jumping off point for discussion. The hope is that this stage, the groups will come up with a set of goals that have passed the "why" question, i.e. why this theme is worth pursuing and why changes need to be made, they can then move onto the "how" question, i.e. how we will chage Chapel Hill over the next 10 years.

Two other new things on Chapel Hill 2020. First, there are two new ways to give feedback online. The blog now has a surveys section. The survey that is open now has to do with themes and current levels of participation. It will close sometime Thursday. The blog also now has a themes section where users can leave comments on the work of specific themes. Second, the resources committee has begun working on pulling together some of what the groups had requested at the first round of working sessions. You can check out the fruits of their labor here.