On Monday, June 19th, we held the seventh meeting of the Gravois-Jefferson Steering Committee. We were lucky to have a presentation by Karishma Furtado of Forward through Ferguson, to begin our conversation about criteria for evaluating draft plan recommendations. We then spent an hour brainstorming and discussing criteria for the Gravois-Jefferson Plan. While we did not come to any conclusions, we made real progress and had open, honest and respectful dialogue. You can take a look at the meeting summary, notes and next steps below.
We began our meeting with a short overview of “criteria” as they relate to neighborhood planning. According to KU’s Community Tool Box, “Criteria are standards for making a judgment. They provide guidelines for making decisions. They aren’t set in stone: the criteria you use for examining a particular set of issues may be different from those you us for another set, depending on the community, the conditions that are in place at the time of the decision, the needs and concerns of the people making the decision, and other factors.”
In order to jump start the conversation on Gravois-Jefferson Plan criteria, we had Karishma from the nonprofit Forward through Ferguson deliver a presentation about the Ferguson Commission’s process of synthesizing community input, developing calls to action, and prioritizing those recommendations based upon mutually establish criteria. You can view the handout she circulated here.
We spent the majority of our time brainstorming potential criteria we will use to evaluate the Gravois-Jefferson Plan. Using this handout, open conversation and closed prioritizing, the following criteria rose to the top:
- Seriousness
- Feasibility
- Cost
- Readiness/willingness/widespread support
- Youth
We discussed what each of these criteria really mean and decided it will be important to have short definitions for the criteria we establish. We hope to have about three criteria for the Steering Committee to use in evaluation plan recommendations.
Our next steps will involve another round of Resource Group meetings to share our draft plan recommendations and refine strategies. From these groups and additional meetings, we will send the plan recommendations to the Steering Committee for evaluation and prioritization. This process will lead directly into a draft plan summit where local residents and organizations will gather to reflect on the plan, provide comments and organize around strategies. Then, a final plan will be submitted for approval by the Planning Commission!