City of Santa Ana, Downtown Orange County
SANTA ANA, CA (September 19, 2013) – The Santa Ana City Council is pleased to announce that the Strategic Planning Information Portal can now be viewed on the City’s web page. (http://www.santa-ana.org/strategic-planning/) Santa Ana is undertaking a five-year strategic planning process to hear from the Santa Ana community about their priorities. The City Council is soliciting input into this planning process from representatives from a broad range of community interests such as: residents, business owners, nonprofit organizations, students, the faith-based community, property owners, educators, and other interested stakeholders. All members of the community are encouraged to visit the City’s web page to see the input that has been provided so far. This is an exciting time to be a member of the Santa Ana community and City Council wants everyone to participate in this important process.
On August 10, 2013, the City hosted a Community Forum where approximately 180 members of the community attended to provide input into the City’s Five-Year Strategic Plan. As part of the process, participants were asked to share one word to describe their vision for Santa Ana five years from now. The attached word cloud represents their collective input. The larger the word, the more it was used by participants to describe their vision for “Santa Ana’s future.” The City also hosted four Focus Group meetings on September 5, 2013, two for community stakeholders and two for employees. The information garnered from both the Community Forum and the Focus Group meetings is being used to develop a community survey.
So, what’s next?
Starting October 1, 2013, the City’s Community Survey will be available for all to complete. The link to the survey will be available on the web page. The survey results, together with all the other community input, will be presented to the City Council at a public workshop later this Fall. With this input, the Council will shape the five-year strategic plan.
Residential and business community members who were not able to attend the Community Forum or Focus Group meetings can have their voice heard by completing the survey. Plus there will be additional public meetings with opportunities to provide input. The Strategic Planning web page in the “Process Schedule” section will list the dates of upcoming public meetings on the five-year strategic plan. Check the web page often to get the most recent information and to see the raw data that was compiled during the different phases.
*Non-English speaking members of the Santa Ana community can translate the City’s web pages using the Google Translate feature, which is located in the upper right corner of the pages.
To received updates on the City’s Five-Year Strategic Planning process and other City information, please register to receive e-mail or SMS alerts from Nixle at http://local.nixle.com/register/ and enter “City of Santa Ana” in the agency locator section.
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Hy Art,
Went to yesterday’s SA Strategic Plan Forum. You might want to post the report they came up with, which boiled down to 9 areas of focus for the City, based on preferences of over 75% in the various survey results. I judge that at least 200 people attended.
I had the idea that the forum was going to be just that, with discussions and workshops where people could ask questions and compare ideas for solutions. There was a lot of discussion, but it was between individuals or groups of three to five. Meanwhile everyone was given the option to write down their ideas on 3×5 post-its which went on a board under each of the nine focus aras. The smart thing, I thought, would have been to have a labeled space to put down your name and contact info, so that the comments could be anonymous or not, if you wanted further contact or discussion. As it was, if a comment paper fell off onto the floor, hopefully someone matched it up with the correct board, and anonymity was the default. I put my email address and a small photo on mine, as I was definitely interested in linking up with other activists – and it worked. In addition to the dozen or so attendees I already knew, I was approached by some Fullerton High School students who were interested in topics such as futurism, maker-spaces, Kurzweil (I was wearing his “How to Build a Mind” T-shirt) the Singularity, and related topics as well as how to organize to put pressure on the schools to actually recognize that there will be a future and it is allegedly their job to help students prepare for it. All told, an intersting and hopefully impactful gathering. I still would have liked a workshop approach.