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Bryant sets new 20/20 meetings |
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Thursday, 07 August 2008 |
First of four forums on city’s future will be today
Bryant officials have decided that it’s again time to discuss the city’s future with residents.
A series of Bryant 20/20 public forums will be held at 6 p.m. today at Boswell Municipal Complex.
Bryant 20/20 represents a clear vision for Bryant’s future, said Rae Ann Fields, executive director of the Bryant Area Chamber of Commerce.
Previous 20/20 forums in 1999 and 2000 proved successful, she said.
“We originally did it because it was required” by the Arkansas Department of Economic Development,” Fields said. “We decided to repeat it because it works.”
The chamber has joined with the Bryant School District, city leaders and civic organizations to hold four public forums. The chamber’s Civic and Government Affairs Committee is coordinating the events.
“This will be an interactive planning session,” Fields said. “We are asking anyone with any stake in Bryant — whether they live here, work here or have children going to school here — to attend. Each forum will be a very structured, hour meeting.”
Jim Garland, customer service manager for Entergy and committee chairman, agreed with Fields.
“Whatever connection anyone has to Bryant needs to be here,” Garland said. “They need to come and give good ideas for Bryant’s future.”
Fields said the sessions are designed to gather ideas, not serve as a forum for outlining complaints, pointing fingers or placing blame.
“It is not about issues; it’s about capturing ideas,” Fields said. “We’ll go through our strengths and weaknesses and then talk about opportunities later.”
Fields said the meetings are intended as a first step in the process and will be followed by efforts to consolidate ideas into categories and then prioritize the proposals. Attention will be given to the needs of all segments of the population she said.
“Back in 1999, we had a lot of good things happen because of this,” Fields said.
“But the last time we did this, we noted no young people came to the events and we were missing their voice. So, we arranged to go to the schools and do the same planning as an exercise in some of the classes.”
The final forum is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 21. Following the forums, Fields said city officials will “see if any there are any voices missing and plan to meet with those missing people.”
Previous forums resulted in the formation of the Bryant Youth Association, which later became the Boys and Girls Club of Bryant. It also resulted in the installation of a ramp onto Interstate 30 at the Springhill Road crossover.
“All we need is people’s presence, participation and good ideas,” Garland said.
“There is no preparation for this, no preregistration, no cost and there is no requirement of any kind. It’s simple.”
“We feel that cities that plan together,” Fields said, “are the ones that get things accomplished.”
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