Blueprint or wish list? !`` Vision plans strive to be a little of both.
Posted on Sunday, September 7, 2008
ROGERS — Blueprint may not be a strong enough word. Think “ copy and paste. ” When the city proposed its 2003 bond issue, it pretty much took, word for word, the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce’s Vision 2020 plan, according to Mayor Steve Womack.
But Womack also used the phrase “ pie in the sky” in describing some of the proposals included in the Vision plans, specifically those that would cost more money than is available or are highly unlikely for other reasons. He mentioned light rail as one example. Other people have more kindly said “ wish list. ”
While those calling the Vision plans “ wish lists” are mostly critics, Chamber Vice President Bethany Stephens said they are right. She said the same thing about the people who call the plans blueprints. The Vision plans are both blueprints and wish lists, she said.
“ It really kind of is both, and I wish there was a word in the middle, ” Stephens said.
At its heart, a Vision plan is just a document, nothing more and nothing less. It comes with no requirements to act on it or even view it. But the governments and schools in Rogers and, more recently, Lowell have benefited from those plans.
Actually, anyone who has ever trod the walking trails in Rogers has benefited from the city’s plan. The trail system was first included in the Vision 2020 plan, completed in September 2002. A group of residents took up the cause and petitioned the city to build the trails. The map included in the Vision 2020 plan eventually became the city’s trail map.
The Vision process began in 1989, when the Chamber worked to create the Vision 2000 plan. The goal was for the community to say, in 1989, what it wanted the city to look like in 2000. Subsequent plans were created for 2010, 2015 and 2020. Lowell was first included in the Vision 2020 plan and has an increased presence in the current process. Stephens hopes to release the Vision 2025 plan in November.
Womack, who began participating in the Vision process in the ’ 90 s, said the city staff usually has already come to the same conclusions as the Vision groups.
“ I think it’s a validation process, ” he said.
In the six years since the Vision 2020 plan was released, the city has been validated quite a bit, as it has completed most of the projects included in that plan, Womack said.
“ We have pretty much checked all those blocks, ” he said.
Sometimes the Vision planners, divided into “ sectors, ” do present an idea that has yet to be considered, but she feels the process is successful if it brings consensus between the city’s various groups and organizations.
“ It’s that we’re all singing from the same sheet music, ” Stephens said.
There are difficulties in presenting the plans, especially this year, as downtown Rogers takes a prominent place in the discussions. The issues that arise generally do not involve one-organization solutions. The plan, even in its preliminary form, requires the cooperation of the city, chamber and downtown merchants and landlords, meaning no one can make unilateral improvement decisions.
Stephens said part of the Chamber’s responsibility in the process, however, is to periodically remind those groups of the priorities set in the Vision process, trying to keep the groups responsible for the community’s desires.
It is also difficult for the Vision planners to specifically portray the world of 2025. No one is expecting an alien takeover or something unexpected like that. Rather, people are finding it difficult to keep up with the technological advances today, let alone those nearly 20 years in the future. It is already impractical to say students should each have a computer at their desks, or a laptop, when computers are not merely the size of cell phones now; they are the cell phones, … or the cell phones are the computers, depending on the point of view.
“ You don’t know what technology will be, (so ) you have to be a little bit broader, ” Chamber Vice President Dana Mather said.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
