Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry is beginning the new year with the launch of "Destination 2040 - Choosing Lexington's Future," a large-scale exercise in grassroots democracy with the goal of engaging the community in determining a clear roadmap for the city's future. The project will take place in two basic phases from January through July.
LFUCG Senior Administrative Officer Charlie Boland discussed details of the program with Business Lexington's Tom Martin. To hear the entire interview, click on the Related Podcast below.
TM: Tell us about Destination 2040; what is this program?
CB: When Mayor Newberry and the newly elected council got together about a year ago, they chose six things that they thought would be important for the community in pursuing an agenda to move the community forward. One of those was a community visioning project. Destination 2040 - Choosing Lexington's Future is what we are calling that project as it begins now to move forward to its fruition. It's an exercise in which we are trying to engage as many citizens as possible to consciously choose the direction for this community to take in the future and answer some key questions that are facing us.
TM: Why is this needed?
CB: Simply because, as we talk to people in the community, there was some consensus that there are a lot of good ideas out there. There are a lot of people who are passionate about the future of the community and who care deeply about things that will be in our future, but there was no common sense of direction, there was no deeply shared vision for the community, and in fact, we had been suffering the symptoms of some past divisiveness that has really not yet been put behind us. And so we wanted to use this exercise as a way to try to overcome that past divisiveness, get people together in a more unified vision for what they would like to see for Lexington - Fayette County as the years come.
TM: How will it work?
CB: Well, it's going to work on several different fronts as we begin to engage the community. I would say that there's two basic phases to it. The first stage will happen between now and probably about the first of July, which will be the civic engagement portion, and then preparation of a vision report and several implementation plans. The second phase will follow that with hopefully long-term implementation of those plans, some very specific things so that action can be taken based on all of the input that we receive over the next few months in this first phase of civic engagement.
TM: Let's say that I am "Business A and have decided to participate. Staff's all ready to go and the day has come