Upcoming Neighborhood Meetings
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.
Citizen Summit
Thank you to everyone who attended or helped to organize and promote the Citizen Summit, a citywide public meeting held on January 29th, 2008 at the Columbus Convention Center. Over 1,600 participants registered for the Summit in advance and 250 people registered on-site the night of the event making this the largest community meeting ever to take place in the City of Columbus. The Citizen Summit played a significant role in the Bicentennial 2012 process. The event brought a broad cross-section of the public together to give the 13 Focus Groups a better understanding of citizens’ perceptions about Columbus, their desired image for the city, and their priorities for implementing a citywide vision. The public input received at the summit refined the more than 10,000 comments already logged through other public outreach efforts like the Think Tank booth, Youth Forum and College Symposium. This unprecedented amount of public input will help guide the 2012 Commissions in their work and represented a significant milestone in the 2012 process and the City of Columbus.
Youth Brainstorming Forum
On November 1st, 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’ corporate boundaries. This student led program gave high school age students exposure to the 2012 process, allowed students to identify improvements they’d 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 for students, an inspirational charge from Mayor Coleman and groups reporting back on their three highest priority ideas. The forum generated 716 ideas.
College Student Symposium
Also on November 1st, 2007 over 50 college students from six different area universities gathered together and provided their insights and visions for the future of Columbus. The Symposium was hosted by the Ohio State Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and included participation from Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD), Columbus State, Otterbein, Capital University and Ohio Dominican University students. 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 students that stay in Columbus and the next generation of 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.