Heartland Visioning, Round 2

Heartland Visioning, Round 2
By Mike Hall
The Capital-Journal
Published Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Sometimes, little things can make life better.

For 9-year-old Jhailyn Johnson, teachers who make learning fun would do it.

Jhailyn was among 145 Shawnee Countians who offered ideas Tuesday night on how to make Topeka a better place to live. The gathering at Seaman High School was the second of three community meetings leading to a plan to be completed in November.

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Article about Visioning needs

Response has been greater than expected from people wanting to be involved in the Heartland Visioning process. But more volunteers are needed from four zip codes: 66612, 66608, 66616 and 66619…

…The initial goal of the process is to generate, with lots of ideas from the public, a plan by early November identifying a few key areas of concern and some ideas for addressing those concerns to make the area a better place to live. However, the visioning process, as it has occurred in other communities, wouldn’t end there. It is designed to be ongoing.

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Article about Visioning for Under 20

Visioning: If we ruled Topeka

>>> 20below staffers share ideas for a better downtown

If you haven’t heard the word visioning in the last few months, you haven’t been paying attention.

The Topeka community is all a buzz — as they should be — with the idea of planning for a better future. Where is this city going? Where do we want to be in 10, 15, 20 years?

Led by Heartland Visioning and members of the project’s steering committee, residents are trying to direct this town down the right path.

As teenagers, we don’t usually get asked what we think the "right path" entails. But when it comes to planning for the future, our opinions are significant because we are that future. We are the ones who will be in charge in 10, 15, 20 years.

Luckily, the folks at Heartland Visioning understand that, and they want the opinions of people our age. We, the 20below staff members, wanted those opinions, too.

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Article about Decrease in Crime in Topeka

The city of Topeka is breaking trends when it comes to violent crime, so much so that we have gained the interest of researches from Michigan State University.

Since 2000 most cities with a population greater than 100,000 have seen an increase in violent crimes, Topeka breaks that trend and the researches want to discover why.

“What we’re trying to do in the study is to try to find out what are some of the strategies put into place here in Topeka that might be able to account for some of this positive news,” Dr. Ed McGarrell with Michigan State University said.

What they found in their two day study is good communication between law enforcement agencies, informed media outlets, and strong community involvement. Dr. McGarrell says it goes farther than just police responding.

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Article about cities changing names

DISH, Texas — Back in the 1950s, Hot Springs, N.M., was renamed Truth or Consequences, N.M., after a popular quiz show. During the dot-com boom of 2000, Halfway, Ore., agreed to become Half.com for a year.

This week, Clark, Texas, morphed into DISH in exchange for a decade of free satellite television from the DISH Network for the town’s 55 homes. Residents in Santa, Idaho, meanwhile, are weighing the pros and cons of changing to Secretsanta.com, Idaho.

Across the nation, small communities are being courted by large corporations who say renaming a town provides a marketing buzz that can’t be bought in television ads. Though some worry about corporate America’s increasing influence in local government, many towns seem eager to accept.

In a deal unanimously approved Tuesday by the two-member town council, Clark agreed to become DISH permanently, effective immediately. It’s part of an advertising campaign for Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar Communications Corp., which operates the DISH Network satellite TV system.

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