A first draft of Decatur’s “Community Action Plan” has received mixed reviews, with several commissioners indicating during last Monday commission meeting they were hearing dissatisfaction from residents.
Some of that centers around the abbreviated version of the draft — only four pages featuring 71 “action points” tackling among others community differences ranging from culture, to race, age, politics and economic resources.
Also during a two-hour “community conversation” on Nov. 12 there was little time allotted for attendees to comment on those action points (although comments can be posted on the city’s web site from now until Nov. 30).
In the past year, city consultant The Art of Community has held 19 “leadership circle,” or small-group meetings, but only two large-scale public gatherings including Nov. 12.
City Manager Peggy Merriss remains optimistic about the plan, for which the city’s paying $109,000.
“One thing I can see emerging from this,” she said, “is series of community training sessions, where we can incorporate diversity, sessions that might, at very least make people welcome in the community.
“So far,” she added, “we’ve already had a lot of people meeting each other, people who might have otherwise not have met, people making connections they might not have made before.”
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