Community conversations to begin city’s visioning process

What will Shoreline neighborhoods, business districts and housing options look like in twenty years? The Shoreline City Council and city staff want residents to tell them how they envision the city in 2028 through “Community Conversations” throughout October.

In an update provided by city staff at the Aug. 25 council meeting, planning director Joe Tovar said October will be a busy month, full of opportunities for the public to attend one of the visioning meetings.

“This exercise is trying to paint in some outlines of the likely future of things we think might happen and invites individuals to express their own thoughts about what they think may happen,” he said.

The staff-proposed visioning process was initially reviewed with the council in July. The council directed staff to prepare a script for a DVD to use at the community visioning meetings.

The process is one way for the city to begin updating the Comprehensive Plan by 2011, Tovar said. Visioning statements that emerge from the process will be part of determining the details of the Comprehensive Plan, city manager Bob Olander said.

“This will be a fairly high level process,” Olander said. “…I think it’s important to remember this is a values process … detail will follow in the Comprehensive Plan.”

Community input will be collected by city staff at each meeting and compiled for council review at the Dec. 1 council meeting.

Staff also asked for the council’s guidance in planning a Town Hall meeting on Oct. 30.

“I would love to see an open mic type of forum,” Mayor Cindy Ryu said.

Deputy Mayor Terry Scott said he hopes residents will attend the meetings who don’t attend on a regular basis.

“In each of these meetings it should be clear that we want to have as much of the public show up and not have members of the community think that a meeting is only for a particular organization,” he said.

Details about the meetings will be printed in the September edition of the Currents newsletter.