All right, I I think we're gonna start maybe not I'll just turn off the mic so this this one there's a cup here okay so those online can you hear us I can hear you great thank you thank you okay really sorry about that um if you have the uh IT director here and he can't figure it out you know something's really wrong so um thank you so much for being here this morning and we'll go as fast as we can now um uh Rodney Ashby planning and zoning director we're excited to have you here this is an important um piece of your job responsibility and it I know I'm really biased but if we can't get the vision right for our community then something's wrong right like that that's a serious serious hurdle for us so um the uh comprehensive plan is a ground up effort it's it's not intended to be those who are in uh positions making the decisions it's intended to be gathering input from the public and then sharing that input with others and then coalescing around ideas that really matter to the community that's the the purpose of the comprehensive plan so uh what uh will be a failure today is if we don't hear anything from you if we do hear um uh aspects that you are concerned about if you feel like we just can't implement what we've heard from the public then that's actually somewhat of a success for us because we gotta redirect things we've got to make sure that it is workable if we have heard things from the public that's just not implementable we need to know that right so it's also a success if you give us your your input and um you tell us that we're we're doing the right thing we're heading the right direction and so I just want to really encourage you uh at the start of this to be engaged here um there is a lot of information as you can see in your packets there's a lot of information but we're gonna try to summarize that and um and then seek your feedback on on the input that we've gotten and then are giving you um so with that I'm gonna turn time over to Doug uh critchfield who is from our team leading this effort and then Mary McGillvray did I say that right okay um our consultant um and project manager for this um I just want uh first want to introduce we have two new staff members there's uh Hayden Draper if you could stand Hayden um he's a new senior planner for long range planning took Bree's place this is his first day so I said we're gonna break in Hayden so um and so uh Hayden just if just a couple of seconds you want to tell a little bit about yourself

Um I just uh first want to introduce.

We have two new staff members.

There's uh Hayden Draper, if you could stand, Hayden.

Um he's a new senior planner for long-range planning, took Bree's place.

This is first day.

So I said we're gonna break in, Hayden.

So um, and so uh Hayden, just if just a couple of seconds, you want to tell a little bit about yourself.

He's a talented landscape architect, so uh we're excited to have his skills here.

Um and then I have Michael McCormick.

Would you stand and introduce yourself?

He's an intern.

Thank you.

Yeah, really great support, and we're glad to have both of them.

So uh we're welcome, both of you.

Um, I'm gonna do a real quick uh just a recap of how we got to this point, and then uh Miriam from Logan Simpson is gonna take us through the rest of the discussion today.

Um so this is our timeline.

You've seen this before.

We're now on phase two uh where we're taking all of vision work that we did over the summer last year, and we're starting now to put that into tangible uh implementation uh plan, which includes objectives and strategies similar to what you see on the current um plan.

And those we're gonna bring those forward to you.

We've also shared a lot of that work with you already through an email connection.

Um after this work today, we're gonna go out to the public again this summer.

We're gonna do a similar type of outreach.

Uh, we're gonna have another survey, and we're gonna ask people essentially um the direction that we're going and and where they can see um significant needs in the community.

And uh we'll have more details about that as we start to as we continue to develop that that work.

Um, and then phase three is gonna be um some drop-in events um and then a final workshop and the uh final public hearings.

Um just a small recap.

We did quite a bit of engagement uh that led up to this.

We had several inter interactions, face a lot of face-to-face work, over 200 hours of staff time, uh university and in uh high school classes, uh drop-in events, things like that.

We had uh uh good results.

We shared these with you last time around.

Uh most people that we interviewed live here or work here, or they're a student here.

Uh there was a few business owners and some other folks.

Um it was uh good for us to see that the um the the census shows a certain demographic in this area age-wise, and we were able to pretty much match that demographic in terms of the people that we outreach to.

So um we were pretty uh happy with those results.

Um these are some of the things that we heard primarily.

People want a safe, walkable, and affordable community.

They want it to be clean, uh family-friendly.

So uh they want the NAMPA feel here, and they want to maintain that and preserve that feeling here as a community.

Um, the number one issue that people are concerned about is affordability, public safety, and preservation of natural areas, which we think uh we've interpreted to mean both natural areas and probably agricultural land.

So we've we've joined those two together, and that was pretty clear in the focus group work that we had.

Um, some of the things that people would like to see us do is uh continue to work on downtown, solve traffic problems, um, and uh deal with growth.

Um those are the uh and manage growth, and so those are the primary issues that people would like to see here.

Um so uh Miriam's gonna take us into the the focus group work that we did and the the meat of the discussion today.

If you have any questions, we'd be glad to take those whether we do that during the discussion or we take a few afterwards.

It's kind of up to you as to how you want to do this, but uh we're glad to take any questions that you had and try and work through those.

We're gonna try and stay focused on the issues.

We have quite a few issues to cover today, so we're gonna try and stay focused on those.

If we start going down a rabbit hole here and there, maybe we can just flag that a little bit and have a little bit more discussion uh via vis-a-vis email or some other methodology.

So okay, Miriam, thank you.

Thanks, Doug, and thanks for having me come back.

I think the last time I was in front of both of you was last October, September.

So I'm glad to be here again.

Based on the conversations that we had last phase with the public and the information that we collected with those conversations, we coalesced it into seven vision themes, as you see on screen.

Um and within those seven vision themes, we embarked on a steering committee, a focus group-led process to really help us understand uh the direction, uh new ideas, being able to uh think through more specifically about what we could include within these vision themes.

And so the steering committee met early this spring and we divided them into seven focus groups.

A number of you participated in them.

We really appreciate that.

Um, some of you participated in more than one, which is above and beyond.

Uh, but the task that we put forward to that focus group process was to develop a list of or a series of objectives, uh, which are essentially goals, their broad aspirational statements of how we what do we want to be in the future?