The Vibrant Communities of La Porte County Initiative hosted a series of community conversations in late October focused on the thoughts and ideas on the future of La Porte County’s communities. The Vibrant Initiative experienced participation from more than 300 residents during the five workshops that were held throughout La Porte County. The Community Conversation Workshops represented the kick-off to the public engagement process to begin a discussion on how to develop an action agenda for the future.
“We had an amazing turnout at each of the workshops. We are thankful for each person who participated because we know how hard it is to free up time.” Maggi Spartz, President of the Unity Foundation of La Porte County said. “Having the chance to hear why people are optimistic about our communities was truly exciting!”
The momentous effort is being coordinated by the Unity Foundation of La Porte County and the La Porte County Convention and Visitors Bureau. The goal of the Vibrant initiative is to develop an action agenda that will guide the future of all the communities of La Porte County based on its residents’ vision and shared goals. Citizen involvement in the action agenda is critical to developing a vision for the county’s future and a plan to make that vision a reality. Over the next few weeks, additional meetings will be held throughout the county to continue the conversation held at the workshops.
“We had a great start to this process and are now striving to get more people involved,” said Jack Arnett, Executive Director of the La Porte County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We’ll be hosting smaller meetings throughout the community over the next few weeks to hear from groups who weren’t able to attend one of our workshops. We’ll also be directing people to an online survey on the website, making it even more convenient to get involved in this process.”
The Vibrant Communities Initiative website, VibrantLPCounty.org, contains a brief online survey for residents to complete focused around prompts on the future of their community. Everyone who is passionate about the future of their communities is welcomed and encouraged to participate, visit:
VibrantLPCounty.org/input
The online survey will be available to the public for the next few weeks, until the Summit on the Future event on December 4th. The Summit on the Future will be a chance for all the communities of La Porte County to come together to review and refine action items identified through public engagement. The results of the public engagement – coupled with technical research and analysis – and the Summit will form the final action agenda for La Porte County. This action agenda will include various programs, policies and projects that address major topics identified through this process, guiding future investments in each community.