Vision input summary complete

COEUR d'ALENE - Organizers of the CDA 2030 Visioning Project have completed a summary of the public input they have collected over the past year, and the public is encouraged to review and comment on it.

The Community Vision Summit Summary is available online at www.CDA2030.org under the "What's New" section. It summarizes all of the input given during the process since it began in July.

Project manager Nicole Kahler said the summary details the input organizers have received during the "community conversation" that was started to answer three questions: Where are we now, where are we going and where do we want to be?

On Nov. 16, more than 125 community members participated in the summit, which was a series of workshops to explore challenges, opportunities, visions, and strategies surrounding six topic areas:

* Community and Identity

* Education and Learning

* Environment and Recreation

* Growth and Development

* Health and Safety

* Jobs and Economy

The summary takes each of those topics and presents them in three categories: community trends and issues, potential vision ideas and "game changer" and "easy win" projects. (See related sidebar.)

"We are in the process of finalizing the action plan," Kahler said, adding that the game changers and easy wins in the summary are just the beginning of that process.

She said the public is invited to review those recommendations and comment on the CDA 2030 website in the same location as the summary. As of last week more than 120 had already taken the 18-minute survey.

Some of the comments in the summary are very good, Kahler said, and some of them will probably fall away.

"The summary is not actually the plan," she said. "It's just the beginning of the conversation."

The trends and issues and the potential vision ideas were provided to the people who attended the summit and they discussed, voted on and edited those recommendations.

For instance, Kahler said some of the information provided to the education group had recommendations for kindergarten through grade 12, and that was amended to include pre-kindergarten, she said.

"They were very small changes," she added.

Between now and the "community roadshow," which is planned for an undetermined date in February, organizers will develop a process for developing more game changers and easy wins in the action plan.

"We spent a very short amount of time on those during the summit," she said.