For the City of Decatur, public involvement and engagement is serious business.  For many planning consultants and some local governments, citizen engagement is simply a project requirement on a checklist that can be accomplished by holding one public hearing to present a draft plan.  We believe that the planning process should be participatory and that the net for inviting and involving the community should be cast as wide and as far as possible.  A successful and useful strategic plan means that the planning process is as important as the final planning product.

 As part of the City’s successful 2010 strategic planning process, we used a Round Table visioning process that we also used successfully in 2000 for the creation of our original strategic plan.  The concept is based on the idea of identifying a wide variety of community leaders and issuing them personal invitations to get involved.  A team of local, volunteer facilitators are recruited and trained and a series of questions and discussion guides are developed to engage the community in a conversation designed to confirm a vision and identify goals to lead the community for the next 10 years.