Vision workshop gives residents voice on issues

What would you think about challenging Columbians to trade places with others for a day and interact with people outside their usual social circles? Or creating a Chamber of the Arts to serve art professionals the way the Chamber of Commerce supports businesses?

These and other ideas will be presented at the Exploring the Vision workshop Wednesday, designed to give the community a chance to weigh in on the goals and strategies generated by the Imagine Columbia’s Future visioning process.

The workshop will be divided into two sections. At the assembly, participants will hear the ideas generated by each of the 13 citizen topic groups and rank their importance on a scale of one to five. Then, each topic group will set up its own station at the “Marketplace of Ideas” and encourage participants to visit and comment on its progress.

“It’s going to be an informal setting, so you can walk around and share your ideas,” visioning co-chairwoman Diane Drainer said of the Marketplace of Ideas. “Kind of like shopping.”

Comment cards will be available for participants to give direct feedback to the groups.

Forty-four goals will be presented at Wednesday’s workshop, each with as many as three strategies.

The draft strategies include:

• Creating a Chamber of the Arts that serves artists, art professionals and the community in a way similar to the way the Chamber of Commerce supports business communities.
• Initiating and continuing historic restoration projects, including the J.W. “Blind” Boone Home.
• Developing technology to improve city services, including delivering broadband Internet over electric power lines and developing interactive social mapping.
• Creating an Intercultural Council to promote and support cultural events and research methods to make Columbia more inclusive.
• Developing “challenge events,” such as Trading Places Columbia, to introduce residents to new people.
• Improving Columbia Regional Airport’s connectivity by flying to other major hubs, such as Dallas and Chicago.
• Creating a Passengers’ Bill of Rights to guarantee alternative methods of transportation when flights are canceled or delayed.
• Bringing together representatives from city, county and private schools to form a Community Educational Facilities Commission to evaluate the state of educational facilities.
• Altering the appointment process for citywide boards and commissions so that half the positions are filled by the City Council and half are selected by neighborhood associations.
• Increasing the size of the council and compensating them for their efforts.

Topic group participants will use the rankings and other feedback to refine their work before the Community Choices workshop, scheduled for late summer.

The workshop at the Kimball Ballroom at Stephens College is where the Imagine Columbia’s Future process began with a community meeting in May 2006. In the fall, more than 420 people attended one of two Big Idea Gathering meetings designed to brainstorm how residents want Columbia to look over the next few decades. The 13 citizen topic groups, which have been meeting once a month since January, used the ideas generated from those meetings to create the goals and strategies that will be presented Wednesday.