June 2, 2005

By Diane Chiddister

Organizers of what’s often called the visioning process aren’t quite comfortable with the word “visioning.” They prefer a term that’s more active, more inclusive.

“It’s a dynamic process for change,” said Len Kramer, a member of the Village Mediation Program Steering Committee. Kathy Hale, director of the Conflict Resolution program at Antioch University McGregor, described the process as “trying to grab a hold of the change that’s going on in the community and give people a voice.”

In an interview on Tuesday, Kramer, Hale and Gina Paget, who directs the Individualized Liberal and Professional Studies program at McGregor, said that whatever the process is called, recent activity in Yellow Springs focusing on visioning has proved compelling.

“It’s exciting to see people work hard and look for new ways to solve problems,” Kramer said. “We’ve seen community-building.”

Recently, the Steering Committee of the Yellow Springs/Miami Township Visioning process has identified a multistage project to address development issues facing Yellow Springs.

The process is about to begin Stage 1, which includes gathering data and education. Stage 2 will take place in the fall, when a series of neighborhood study groups will be formed, along with the synthesizing of the study groups’ results. The third stage will include a feedback session to the community along with the formation of small action groups. And in Stage 4, which the Steering Committee hopes to organize by winter, a final plan will be drawn up and action groups will be formed.

Paget said that she finds the current process to be energizing and invigorating.

“I feel hopeful that this process will change the way we do business in the village,” she said.

Kramer, Paget and Hale, along with Miami Township trustee Mark Crockett and Yellow Springs Historical Society member Dave Neuhardt, serve as the process design coordinators for the visioning effort. Over the last several months, they have organized a series of meetings on the visioning process, and about 40 villagers and Miami Township residents have been involved. That group has been identified as the process’s Steering Committee.

Those who attended the meetings have stressed that they want the visioning planning process itself to build bridges between people, and that to do so, the process needs to be both inclusive and transparent.

“People want a process that builds community even as it determines direction,” Hale said.

Everyone agrees on the need to get as many people as possible involved, said Kramer, who sent 80 letters to local organizations asking for representatives for the visioning meetings. So far, representatives from Community Resources, the Village government, Antioch McGregor, Tecumseh Land Trust, the Men’s Group, Friends Care Community, Chamber of Commerce and Miami Township, along with many individuals, have become involved.

But even that broad community representation isn’t good enough, Kramer, Paget and Hale said, and at a public meeting last Thursday, the Steering Committee formed a working group to reach out to those who haven’t yet attended a visioning meeting. The organizers said they always consider who hasn’t yet become involved and how to draw those people in. Over the summer, the group will have a presence at large community events, such as the Street Fair and the Blues Fest, in order to attract more people, and they also plan to put up newsprint in restaurants, churches and other gathering spots for people to submit their ideas and suggest topics for discussion.

Inclusiveness is paramount because without broad community participation in the visioning process, Yellow Springers will never be able to make the necessary challenging decisions about the village’s future in a way that allows all community members to feel good about those decisions, the group believes.

Kramer said his interest in having a visioning process to address local development issues was sparked by last fall’s controversy over the possible development of the Fogg farm on the west edge of town. Noting that government decisions on the Fogg farm met with outcry from those who opposed the development, Kramer said there seemed no middle ground, nor a way to find one. Others he spoke with also shared a concern about the need for a new process to bring people together, he said.

Several years ago Village Council had identified a visioning process as a goal, but it then dropped the idea.

Controversy has racked Yellow Springs for years, Hale said, offering as examples the affordable housing issue and the recall campaign of 2000. Although those specific controversies have passed for now, people continue to feel the effects of the divisiveness, she said.

“What we’re hearing is that people feel wounded, feel that there are unresolved tensions. There’s a lack of trust in each other,” she said. That lack of trust has led, in some cases, to people pulling away from community involvement, she believes.

The visioning group wants to reverse that trend and do what it can to create more hope and more trust, group members said. In the neighborhood groups, trained facilitators will help people identify what they consider the most important issues, identify the values they hold in common, and try to address some of the unresolved tensions that linger from past controversies.

While no one who participates in the neighborhood groups will end up getting everything they want, organizers hope that people come away with a sense of having their concerns heard, hearing the concerns of others, and recognizing that a less-than-ideal solution may be the best one possible. That process in itself can build trust and help make future community decisions more sustainable, since they are based on a collaborative model, the Steering Committee members said.

Organizers hope that the neighborhood groups will build “pockets” of cooperative groups. “A lone cooperative voice will get eaten alive, but when you build pockets of those people you can get things done,” Hale said.

Visioning process organizers encourage all interested persons to take part in the planning process. Those interested may call Kramer, 767-9177, for more information.