| The Blueprint for the Bicentennial is the Summary Report of the 2012 Commission that was presented to Mayor Coleman by the Co-chairs of the Commission E. Gordon Gee, Abigail Wexner and Timothy Clarke |
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Blueprint for the Bicentennial |
| A special thanks Columbus City Schools for their hospitality and all the citizens who came out to the Neighborhood Meetings! |
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Neighborhood Meetings Report |
| A special thank you to everyone who attended or helped to organize and promote the Citizen Summit! |
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Citizen Summit Summary |
| Full Citizen Summit Report |
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Recycle |
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Clean Green Streets |
To the Honorable Michael B. Coleman, Mayor
City of Columbus
Dear Mayor Coleman:
It is with great pleasure that we submit to you the recommendations of the 2012 Commission, which you appointed to create a transformational vision for the city of Columbus by 2012 and beyond.
Our recommendations are based upon the significant amount of input gathered since May 2007 through the city’s most extensive public outreach effort ever; from the Think Tank, Youth Forum, and College Symposium to the Neighborhood Meetings and Citizen Summit. The 33-member Steering Group, working with its 13 focus groups comprising an additional 225 community leaders, developed these recommendations. In all, we heard from more than 6,000 residents, with thousands of ideas on their personal visions for Columbus’ future. Their voices have helped us craft this Blueprint with a sense of pride, a sense of community, a sense of optimism and a respect for the great diversity and opportunity of our city.
We thank you for your leadership and the opportunity to be a part of this important work,; we thank our 2012 volunteers for the enormous contributions of their time and creativity; and we thank the citizens of Columbus for engaging in this process of thinking big and working hard to define a new legacy for our city. There is much to do.
Sincerely,
Bishop Timothy J. Clarke – Senior Pastor of the First Church of God
Dr. E. Gordon Gee – President The Ohio State University
Abigail S. Wexner - Founder and Board Chair, Columbus Coalition Against Family Violence
In order to begin the transformation desired, the city undertook an unprecedented public input process designed to engage thousands of participants in the 2012 vision. During the summer of 2007, the 2012 Think Tank (a kiosk of computer terminals) traveled to 23 community festivals, and was used by 1,840 people who generated 8,197 comments. Neighborhood Surveys were also circulated amongst neighborhood civic leaders asking them to identify the five most important attributes that make up a great neighborhood. Over 220 people responded with 1,016 ideas and the city also received more than 700 comments from online submissions.
On November 1, 2007, the Youth Brainstorming Forum was held at Metro High School with over 300 high school students from the 11 school districts represented within the city of Columbus. This student-led program gave high school age students exposure to the 2012 process; allowed students to identify improvements they would like to see within the city; and connected students from different schools around the city. Metro High School students designed and led the program that featured group breakout sessions, an inspirational charge from Mayor Coleman and groups reporting back on their three highest priority ideas. The forum generated 716 ideas.
Also on November 1, 2007, over 50 college students from six different area universities gathered together and provided insights and visions for the future of Columbus. The College Symposium was hosted by the Ohio State Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and included participation from Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus State Community College, Otterbein, Capital and Ohio Dominican Universities. Ohio State’s USG President Kate Christobek charged students with improving the city for not only themselves, but future generations of college students. Mayor Coleman encouraged students by indicating that the 2012 plan was something that will be implemented in the short term. Current and future students will benefit from the 2012 process. The student led program then gave participants time for group breakout sessions where students from different schools were mixed into groups and generated 179 ideas. Each group prioritized five ideas and presented them at the end of the symposium.
Two Structured Focus Group Interviews were conducted with Somali-Americans and Latinos living within the city to gather their specific needs and visions for Columbus. The structured interviews included 24 participants from different parts of Columbus and focused on the needs of many new immigrants to the city.
The Citizen Summit, a citywide public meeting held on January 29th at the Columbus Convention Center, was the largest community meeting ever to take place in the city and featured an interactive program designed to refine the input gathered from all previous events. Over 1,600 participants registered for the Summit in advance and 250 people registered on-site. The Summit played a significant role in the process by bringing together a broad cross-section of people to give the focus groups a better understanding of citizens’ perceptions, their desired image for the city, and their priorities for implementing a citywide vision. The public input refined the more than 10,000 comments already collected while providing direct feedback on specific questions. For instance, the Image and Marketing focus group designed a series of questions that helped inform their group about how citizens currently view Columbus and the fundamental ambitions of citizens for their city.
Building on the Summit’s success, the 2012 project held five Neighborhood Meetings to engage citizens on the question of ‘what will make our neighborhoods great?’ These meetings drew over 190 citizens and were geographically distributed to gather neighborhood specific perspectives and to understand neighborhood capital priorities prior to development of the 2012 Bond Package.
The 2012 Commission was created to be stewards of the public input by taking citizens recommendations and turning them into a small number of priority recommendations to be presented to Mayor Coleman and Columbus City Council at the conclusion of the process. The Commission was divided into 13 focus groups which were charged with identifying 1-3 critical projects or programs to be initiated or completed by 2012. Each focus group was made up a panel of citizen experts that deliberated on the topic area. The focus groups had three structured meetings but all of the groups and commission members put in many hours of effort to brainstorm research and conceptualize their work. The focus groups initially formed an overriding goal and criteria for evaluating the projects or programs, created a draft list of items to be considered, worked with other focus groups on overlapping ideas and finally recommended 1-3 projects or programs to the 2012 co-chairs.
The 2012 Steering Group received each focus group’s recommendations for review and consideration. The number of thoughtful and compelling recommendations made the deliberations very challenging for the Steering Group. The committee was chaired by President Gordon Gee, Abigail Wexner and Bishop Timothy Clarke, and included one to three representatives from each of the 13 focus groups. The committee consolidated the 85 recommendations into the prioritized group presented in this Blueprint. The criteria below drove their deliberations: