The start of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee meeting began tonight in a way that it likely never will again – with Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack explaining publicly the purpose of updating the plan and how committee members were chosen to take part.
Gosack started by saying that the last comprehensive plan, from 2002, was an important step in the process the current committee is taking part in today, but he said the plan was overwhelming and difficult to completely implement.
"We saw that we were too ambitious and couldn't get (all of the goals and tasks of the 2002 comprehensive plan) done," he said.
He told appointed members that their job as members of the steering committee was to help focus the plan update "by bringing vision and hopefully you will articulate what you think Fort Smith will look like, what you want it to look like."
A point Gosack also made with the group was that while discussion during the 18 month process was important, unity among the committee when the final plan is presented to the public would be paramount.
"Work well with each other and respect each other's opinions. And in the end, the entire group should support the recommendations. If we have little clicks with agendas, then the public will lose confidence and won't know what to believe."
In response to a question from committee member Sam T. Sicard about whether the members of the committee are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, Gosack told members that they were.
"You are a public body. Just like everyone else (that works with the city), you are subject to FOIA."
Gosack took time to remind the committee that any documents, including those on personal and work computers, would be subject to the requests under the law. He also said the meetings are announced and open to the public in order to comply with FOIA.
Regarding the appointments, which were made on March 11 in executive committee and therefore not open to the public or the media, he said there were many considerations that were made by the Fort Smith Board of Directors.
"The Board of Directors solicited applications for a number of weeks. In all, 70 people applied. The criteria that was most important was having quality people on this committee. The Board attempted to conduct interviews with everyone who applied for the committee. There were some of you who they weren't familiar with. the interviews you had really impressed them. There were a few appoints made based on that."
Other considerations, Gosack said, included demographics, age distribution and occupations. In total, he said 12 different occupations were represented by the 28 different members of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee.
Planning and Zoning Director Wally Bailey elaborated on the selection of Wallace, Roberts and Todd to serve as consultants to the committee and the city.
He said ads were placed in national publications and four different firms applied to be considered. Following interviews, reference checks and a thorough research of the company's past work, the selection committee, which included Gosack, Bailey and other city department heads, the group unanimously decided to recommend to the Board the selection of WRT.
"I think they were very candid with us," Bailey said. "They didn't juts tell us what we wanted to hear. They said they would tell what what we need to know."
Following the statements of Gosack and Bailey, Brian Traylor of WRT led the group in a discussion of what the visioning process the group would undergo with the public in the next month.
Traylor said the goal was to get more input from the citizens of Fort Smith in four different areas - the city's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
"We want to just facilitate a discussion, one thing at a time. All (ideas are) valuable, but it's hard to collect them."
In order to get the most amount of input possible, Traylor told the group that they would all be asked to sign up for one of three different visioning sessions to take place July 29 and 30. The format, he said, would be around 80 minutes and would include a broken down discussion of each section, with a committee member leading the discussion while another wrote down the input from citizens.
Prior to a mock-visioning session, Traylor told committee members that they would be "ambassadors" and while they would help guide and direct the future vision of the city at upcoming committee meetings, the job of the committee members at the visioning sessions was to be "more limited than a participant will be."
"It really needs to be concise thoughts, not a speech on what's important to you. There's no correcting - it's not a time to say you're wrong. Take the input and move on. And listen. It helps to hear voices you're not familiar with," he said. "Also, try to understand how this fits into the process. Why is this happening? What is the purpose of this? It should be something you are comfortable explaining."
The committee also appointed John Cooley and Galen Hunter as co-chairmen. Both men will help direct future meetings and also help present the final, updated comprehensive plan to the public in approximately 17 months.
Following the meeting, Traylor said he felt the session was productive.
"I think we had a great turnout. And I think we accomplished all of the goals that we wanted to and really get ready for the community visioning series."
Hunter said he was excited to see how he and the committee would begin to engage with the public.
"I think the important thing about tonight was we, the committee found out how we were going to take our first step to really engage the community. We had our open house where everybody had a chance, but I think this is really going to give us a chance to get into the meaty part of not just letting people write what their ideas are, but actually trying to draw some of those ideas and categorize them into different things so we can start developing the ideas that are going to be useful to the planners."
The public visioning series will be held on the following dates:
• July 29 at 11:30 a.m. in the Rose Room at Creekmore Park;
• July 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the Community Room at the main branch of the Fort Smith Public Library on Rogers Avenue; and
• July 30 at 5:30 p.m. at the Fort Smith Senior Activity Center, located at 2700 Cavanaugh Road.
Citizens who cannot make any of the public meetings are also able to log on to FutureFortSmith.com, where they can provide input and get the latest information on the Comprehensive Plan update, Traylor said.