PlanET Gears Up for Regional Forum Series 2 Events

Plan East Tennessee, or PlanET, invites community members throughout Anderson, Blount, Knox, Loudon and Union counties to participate in its upcoming Regional Forum Series 2 events. Forums are scheduled to take place April 23-28, 2012. The forums focus on five areas: jobs, housing, transportation, a clean environment and community health. A full list of meeting locations and times can be found on the PlanET website.

"While PlanET's Phase One process asked citizens ?where are we now?' as a region, Phase Two will ask, 'what kind of East Tennessee do we want future generations to inherit?'" said Mayor Tom Beehan, City of Oak Ridge and PlanET Board of Mayor's Chair.

The Regional Forum Series 2 dialogue events will last two hours each, beginning with a 30-minute open house. During this time citizens will be able to visit five stations relating to the PlanET focus areas and view presentation boards and hand-outs about the Phase One findings for each focus area. Participants can also talk individually with members of the PlanET team as well as local leadership who are involved.

Next, a 10-minute presentation will recap the top strengths and challenges identified in Forum 1 and highlight the PlanET Livability Report's "scorecard."

From there, 50-minute small-group discussions will ask participants to answer three questions related to a regional vision. Following a short break, group responses will be consolidated, and members of each small group will be able to vote on priorities they think are most important.

As a final point, the forum will conclude with an overview of what will happen with that meeting's results.

"We're now getting to the really fun part and some of the most substantive elements of PlanET, and that's the conceptual thought about what the people of this five-county East Tennessee area want their region to be," said Mayor Beehan. "We hope to see a big turn-out at each of the regional forum dialogue events in all five counties ? plus participation online through MindMixer."

Posted 4-18-2012, written by MPC Staff