Community Vision Building a Vision Plan Vision Teams Vision Plan Draft Suggested Goal List

What is Wellsburg's Vision? - By Rick Starck

This Vision section is one man's approach for revitalizing Wellsburg. If you can offer different solutions, additions, or improvements, please speak up. Good ideas are always welcome.

As a recent summer resident, I fell in love with Wellsburg and it's abundant potential. As a retired business owner, I felt compelled to join the revitalization efforts. My first question was, "What is Wellsburg's Vision? No one I talked with could offer a clear answer. The best I could find was the Wellsburg Comprehensive Plan adopted in November 2014.

The Comprehensive Plan is an excellant starting point. The plan identifies the city's strong and weak points. The next step is to create a clear vision forward. A vision plan is a document containing a list of goal/components paired with actions to be taken to accomplished the goal.

Building a Community Vision Plan is rewarding and a lot of fun. Some might be intimidated by the project's scope, but we will break it down to easily digestible bites. Start with a subscription to our newsletter, as it is an essential source of community information and media to encourage others to join the revitalization effort.

How to Build a Community Vision Plan

Who should define the vision for our community? The easy answer is that's a job for our elected officials. On closer inspection, you'll find our elected officials are busy addressing the city's immediate needs and have little or no time available to develop and continually refine a community vision plan.

If you feel Wellsburg could do better, this is your opportunity to help mold a revitalization plan. People live or work in a community because it is appealing to them. Declining appeal inevitably results in a population decline. However, the reverse is also true. Make a community more appealing, and exciting things start to happen.

Let's take a moment to examine what the term "community vision" means. A vision example might be a compilation of infrastructure improvements, new businesses, beautification, social activities, educational opportunities, health facilities, and adequate housing. Whatever the vision is, it is unlikely to match your vision. A good community vision is the blending of the visions held by individual stakeholders. A community vision is not static. It will change over time and, therefore, must be periodically updated.

Selecting the beautification component from the example, you quickly realize that term is not very descriptive (actually, it is so vague it's worthless). A better statement might say enhance the beauty of Main Street between 6th and 10th Streets by adding three shade trees per block, replacing the sidewalks, and adding one bench seat per block on the east side of Main Street. The new version provides clarity, reduces misinterruptation, and suggests actions needed to complete the objective.

You can transform a vision statement into a vision plan by determining what actions, materials, and funds are required to bring that vision statement to life. Using the improved beautification statement, we can create a plan by adding bid, and order steps for both a landscaping firm and a concrete company. Also include steps to order, receive, and place the bench seats in the right locations. Of course we need funding, so include how the money will be secured. Finish by scheduling dates for each activity. The vision plan is now ready to be assigned to a team for execution.

Will all the members of our community come together to develop a community vision plan? Of course not. But, a handful of enthusiastic people can make remarkable progress.

Vision Teams

The engine that propels a Community Vision Plan is simply a small group of stakeholders willing to donate time and talent to the effort. The organizational group's tasks are to outline the overall plan and recruit people for other more specialized teams. A five-person group is an ideal size, but groups of 3-7 can also be effective. The members of specialized teams focus on one aspect of the overall plan. For example, if the focal point is streets and roads, the team members would be selected because of their interest or experience in that topic. The streets and roads team would refine the vision statement and through discussion with team members transform the vision into a written plan. The final phase is, of course, execution. You have a goal; you know what needs to be done; now do it by prioritizing, scheduling, and assigning tasks to group members.

An essential trait of effective teams is the frequency of their meetings. Meet once a week until it becomes evident that a different schedule should apply. Monthly meetings don't make much progress. Another trait that boosts a team's effectiveness is assigning duties to be accomplished by team members before the next meeting.

Creating a Draft Vision Plan

The first task of our initial (organizational) Vision Team is to review the list of suggested goals. These suggestions are derived from Wellsburg's 2014 Comprehensive Plan. The number of volunteers, their areas of interest, and level of participation will determine which goals receive first attention. The suggested list is not comprehensive. The organizational team should feel free to add missing components.

Think of the vision plan you are creating as a work-in-progress. New goals are added and accomplished goals are deleted. Other goals may be modified mid-stream. This is a document under going continual change. It is the focal point of the community revitalization efforts.

When a team adopts a listed goal, their first action is to transform the brief description to a full working version. During their meetings to create a workable description, actions needed to accomplish that goal will start to become apparent. Follow up meetings will refine the action items, set schedules, and discuss the duty assignments. The full documentation of the adopted goal will be presented to the organizational team for inclusion into the draft vision plan.

The organizational team is also responsible for recruting specialist team members. The website and newsletter will continue to support this effort, but it is likely other sources will need to be developed. Don't forget, one of the most effective means of recruting a volunteer is a personal invitation.

The organizational team will determine when the draft is sufficiently complete to be presented to the public. Our website will note the availability for download. The plan will also be announced via our newsletter and social media. If appropriate, an email survey could help determine the level of community acceptance.

CALL TO ACTION

The brief tutorial is completed and we are ready to begin work. We need to identify people with the desire to revitalize Wellsburg. To volunteer, send an email to rick.starck@mywellsburg.com. Your contact information (phone & email) with a bit of background would be helpful. At the appropriate point (6-8 volunteers), I will set the time and place for a kickoff meeting. In the meantime, take a look at at the suggested goals document.