I have taken a close look at the Long Term Strategic Plan, page 15 (Click here for the PDF), in the draft vision. This one page is the overall summary and broad goals for the process: the core values, vision, and key benchmarks.
I found the Core Values to be very powerful. Being a member of the Task Force I was able to vote on these, and I hope they are representative of what the community would want it’s values to be: Trust, Innovation, Positive Attitude, Integrity, and Faith in God. I found it very interesting that Trust every week that we voted was always the number one value. It is something that we are very much missing in this community and if we can repair the trust within the community, I think this would be a successful process. If we use these five values to guide the decisions of the community, hopefully in the future we can use these to actually describe our community. I would love to one day say that Topeka is an innovative city with people that have a lot of integrity.
The Vision is really the very broad framework to guide our efforts and hopefully get all of the community, government and organizations working towards the same goal. In theory I think it is hard to argue with any of the Vision points. Who wouldn’t want to live in a city that did all of these. How we get these accomplished is the tough question, but I think the importance is that we all buy into these, even if some parts seem almost unattainable. We have to start believing that we can make this city better. It will be a long process and we may never make all parts of the Vision come true, but isn’t it worth a try? Read the rest of this entry »
Over the next few weeks we will be slowly going through the Heartland Visioning draft. Page 3 of the draft has a Comments and Input Form, this is a great way to send in your thoughts on some of the points and ideas in the plan.
Let me say up front that this plan does not appear to me to be a “take all or leave it” situation. There are good ideas laid out just as there are (in my opinion) bad ideas. One of the wonderful things about America, that I sometimes think we forget, is that we can disagree while still appreciating each others differences of opinion. Respect is the name of the game. If you disagree with someone, that’s ok, just explain your reasoning and don’t belittle. The way you treat others is a great reflection of how you feel about yourself.
I’m going to start with the Call to Action (page 4), going kind of point by point of some of the items I see that stand out.
1. “…1,500 citizens…” – A personal thanks to all who got involved. Everyone has a sphere of influence, it is great to see people trying to expand their spheres.
2. “We are in a downward spiral. Our population is growing older. Not enough skilled young workers are available to replace those who will be retiring. The tax base is shrinking. Those left are paying more, yer services are decreasing. Our quality of life is diminishing. We are slowly dying on the vine.” – Reading this gave me a positive first impression of the draft. We can’t fix the problem if we aren’t dealing in reality. Many of us see this with our own eyes (and pocketbooks) and understand the situation. I think this pretty much nails the situation on the head.
3. “…increase the size of its available workforce…retain existing workforce…making our community attractive to young workers…grow business and our economy…expand our tax base” – This is the crux of it all, summed up. Businesses create jobs, jobs need workers, attractive community will bring the workers in, tax base expands (Topeka expands possibly), economy increases, cost per citizen goes down, quality of life increases. It is all interconnected.
Travis GoodencloseAuthor: Travis GoodenName: Travis Gooden Email: tgooden@greenwaveelectric.com Site:http://www.greenwaveelectric.com About: I was born in Topeka, KS in 1976, went to Randolph Elementary, Robinson Middle School, and graduated from Topeka High School in 1994. I spent 2 years at Washburn taking general studies, but I did not graduate. I spent 12 years working for a local electrical contractor and in September of 2007 started Greenwave Electric with Aaron and Ryan. I married Denise Sharp on October 18, 1997 and we have 2 dogs, Sebastian and Beaker. We currently have no children. We moved to Holton for 4 years, but then decided we missed Topeka and moved back July 2007. We live at 215 SW Courtland Ave in Topeka, KS in the Kenwood Neighborhood, we love our neighborhood.See Authors Posts (5)
Come help make Topeka a more beautiful place and join in the clean up of Willow Park on Saturday! Several of the Transform Topeka members will be there and this is a great opportunity to take just a few hours & help out in the community. Here is all the info:
Topeka Tree Team
Y’ALL COME!
THIS COMING SATURDAY MORNING, SEP. 20, BEGINNING AT 9:00 O’CLOCK, PLEASE JOIN US IN A VOLUNTEER CITIZENS’ BIG AMBITIOUS MAKEOVER PROJECT TO BEAUTIFY AND RESTORE TOPEKA’S HISTORIC WILLOW PARK.
Willow Park, located immediately to the north across S.W. 6th Street from Saint Francis Hospital, is five blocks long, and extends to the west between SW Garfield and SW Lindenwood Streets. Its central Topeka location on a busy main east-west traffic corridor makes it highly visible to large numbers of out-of-town visitors and Topeka citizens alike. In bygone days it had a beautiful bandstand and a baseball diamond, and two pedestrian suspension bridges spanned the stormwater runoff creek toward its west end. But today, many of its trees are badly damaged or diseased, its shrubs are badly overgrown, the bridges have been torn down, and its creek banks are eroding away, choked with weeds and wild bushes. In short, Willow Park frankly has become almost more of an unfortunate eyesore than a valuable asset to our city and its image.
We intend to fix that on Saturday…or at least make a jolly good start at it!
The Topeka Chamber of Commerce recently released this new video promoting the quality of life in Topeka:
What do you think about it?
Overall, I really like it. I showcases some great Topeka locations and events, and even a couple of things that I didn’t realize Topeka had!
The thing I like best about this video, compared to another Topeka video that was also released recently, is that it’s produced by hometown talent. The guys at Gizmo Pictures are the best video production company in the Midwest! I can’t understand why any Topeka agency would pay for a video produced by an out-of-state production crew when they have access to the best right in their back yard.
We are working on a Transform Topeka Forum to allow futher discussions that we just don’t have time to cover on the blog. We welcome everyone’s opinions on the forum, but we will not allow flaming or trolling. We are a friendly bunch and want to extend that to the forum.
We are working on a button to put with our Linkden and Facebook bannere as well as a few “Link to us” buttons if you want to share our resources with your friends and family.
Brandon SheleycloseAuthor: Brandon SheleyName: Brandon Sheley Email: admin@vbulletinsetup.com Site:http://brandonsheley.org About: I'm the "webmaster" as some have said. I've been playing with sites online for the past 6 years. I maintain and host the TransformTopeka website as well offer my input on what can make Topeka better in the tech area.See Authors Posts (9)
