Chapel Hill 2020- Second Stakeholder Meeting

This is it -- the process to say what you want from Chapel Hill.  It is about more than just drawing zoning colors and obscure designations on a map.  The process really was to create a vision for what we want Chapel Hill to be in the next 10 years.  If you don't contribute to that vision now, you really shouldn't complain about how it comes out in the end.  That means this is it -- your chance to provide input before stuff happens.  Your chance to be an equal stakeholder in our future.Needless to say, I went to the 1st one of these, and while the ideas weren't necessarily significantly new, I was very impressed by the process and the willingness to talk and listen in our group.   I highly recommend this for anyone who has any interest in Chapel Hill (that certainly includes people who live in the general area, people who work here, people who play here, even people who drive through from Chatham to RTP).

they said last night the location for this meeting is not set yet

I, too, attended last night's kick off. Small discussion groups were randomly assigned. Our facilitator and recorder remained neutral. There was a variety of ages, ethnicities, and neighborhoods in our one small group. People listened respectfully and shared opinions. Bravo to the organizers. 

Why not some facility at UNC? They certainly have the space, although weekday availability could be an issue. 

OK everyone.  We will have the 2nd Chapel Hill 2020 Stakeholders Meeting on Thursday October 6th, 7-9 PM, at the East Chapel Hill High School auditorium as was originally planned.  Unfortunately, finding a larger space on short notice is very difficult.  Even the Friday Center, much to my surprise, wouldn't provide any more capacity.  If we have more than the 500 folks the auditorium can seat we will use the cafeteria for the overflow and we will be able to deliver everything onto the TV screens in the cafeteria that is being projected in the auditorium.  We are hoping to use keypad polling to facilitate some of the decision making on Thursday.  We are going to be testing that system on Tuesday to make sure it will work for us.  The keypad polling system is being provided to us by the UNC Health Care System - one of many things they are doing to help in this process.The process we are planning on right now is as follows:  First, on Monday (hopefully) we will be posting ALL the ideas/comments/words/etc that were recorded on Tuesday on either on the large tablets or on the recorder forms.  We will probably post these on the www.2020buzz.org blog but either I or someone else will hopefully copy and post these on other blogs, etc. to get as much distribution as possible.Second, our facilitator, Matt Leighninger, is going through all the ideas/comments/words/etc that were recorded under "vision statement" and he is going to draft three suggestions that we might use as a vision statement.  These three suggestions will also be posted, either on Monday or Tuesday.Third, the staff is going through all the ideas/comments/words/etc that were recorded under "themes" and is going to try to come up with a suggestion for 6 or so key theme areas, based on all your suggestions, to focus on.  These will also be posted. Next Steps:  On Thursday, Oct. 6th: The plan is to have a mini open house in the cafeteria area on Thursday in which people who have not had a chance to see the draft vision statements and draft key themes (and all of the ideas/comments/words/etc from which these drafts were derived)  can view them before we go into the auditorium and get started.  Our goal on Thursday is to (1) agree on a draft Vision Statement(with the understanding that we may come back to and modify this as the CH 2020 process proceeds over the next 6-8 months) and (2) to agree on 6 (could be more, could be less) draft Key Themes that we want to work on over the next 6-8 months.  We will then ask folks to sign up as to what Key Themes they are interested in  working more intensively on over the coming months.  We aren't going to hold anyone to this decision - we're just trying to get some idea of how many folks might be in each group.On Saturday, Oct. 22nd: We will have a Community Open House at University Mall (11AM-3PM) at which the draft Vision Statement and draft Key Themes will be posted, along with all the raw ideas/comments/words/etc from which they were derived. This will enable folks who haven't been able to participate at this point to see where we are in the process and to weigh in by leaving their ideas/comments/words/etc.  These will be collected and posted for everyone to see before our first Key Theme Working session on Thursday October 27th, 4:30-6:30PM, at Ephesus Elementary School.  At the beginning of that session we will ask the entire group whether, based on the ideas/comments/words/etc that we received from the Community Open House, we need to make any tweaks/changes to our draft Vision Statement or our draft Key Themes.  At that point our draft Vision Statement will be set (for the time being) and our draft Key Themes will become our Key Themes.  Folks will then separate into groups according to the Key Themes they are interested in working on.And that's it for now - I need to get to work.  Have a great day everyone.  

From Town Manager Roger Stancil earlier this evening: "Just wanted to let you know that photos and images of the big papers from the Comprehensive Plan kickoff Tuesday night are all up on the blog www.2020buzz.org"Ed Harrison