How do officials improve a city and learn what the people want for its future?
In Bryant, it happens through a series of town hall-type meetings — or at least that’s what officials are hoping.
Bryant city leaders believe they have found a way to communicate ideas, goals and problems, all in an effort to better the community. The program is called Bryant 20/20 A Clear Vision for Bryant’s Future and is a series of public forums in the community.
The first of the forums was held Thursday night, though attendance was light.
“We want to know what you want Bryant to be or look like,” state Sen. Shane Broadway, D-Bryant, said. “Ten years from now, what do you want to have, or not have, for that matter? We are gathering in these meetings to do brainstorming. We want to look at where we are, and later, decide where we want to go.”
Broadway, along with the Bryant Area Chamber of Commerce and other city leaders, reintroduced the meetings; the chamber’s Civic and Government Affairs Committee is coordinating the events.
Jim Garland, committee chairman, said a forum such as this can be beneficial for anyone with any stake in Bryant.
“Whatever connection anyone has to Bryant , they need to be here,” Garland said. “They need to come and give good ideas for Bryant’s future. All we need is people’s presence, participation and good ideas. There is no preparation for this, no preregistration, no cost, and there is no requirement of any kind. It’s simple.”
There will be three more meetings between Aug. 14 and Aug. 21 at different venues, so all the voices of people who have a stake in the community can be heard, explained chamber executive director Rae Ann Fields.
“We are asking anyone with any stake in Bryant — whether they live here, work here or have children going to school here — to attend,” Fields explained.
Fields said the program was held in 1999 and 2000 and because of those successes, they decided to bring the meetings back. 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.
“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.”
She said the program is designed to gather ideas, not serve as a forum for outlining complaints, pointing fingers or placing blame.
“It is not about issues, its 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.
After attendees gather at a meeting, they are split into groups and asked to list the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the city. The lists are written on large easel notepads and collected for examination at the end of each meeting. From there, Fields said they will look to see whether any groups of people were left out of the meetings.
“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 that no young people came to the events and we were missing their voices. So, we arranged to go to the schools and do the same planning as an exercise in some of the classes.”
After all four of these new meetings are held, Broadway, Fields and other city leaders hope to find some agreed-upon items that people want to see or not see in the community. From that point, Fields said they hope to put many, if not all, of those ideas into action and implement them sometime in the near future.
“We feel that cities that plan together,” Fields said, “are the ones that get things accomplished.”

 Meeting schedule

Following is the schedule of Bryant 20/20 town hall forums:
• Thursday, Aug. 14 — Hurricane Creek Elementary School cafeteria, 6091 Alcoa Road, 7:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, Aug. 19 — Bethel Middle School library, 5415 North Lake Road, 7:30 p.m.
• Thursday, Aug. 21 — City public safety building, fire department training room, 312 Roya Lane, 6 p.m.