Community Council

Programs: This is the eighth year of community council's community-building-bringing citizens together to learn from one another, identify shared priorities, address common challenges, and advocate for positive change. This year, community council's impact has grown significantly both in terms of programmatic development and community engagement. In 2016 we concluded a community study, sustained and extended current implementation work, launched a new regional visioning project, and continued to develop a set of regional indicators. We greatly expanded our outreach efforts and made our workshops and meetings more inclusive by working with community partners to engage new segments of our population, and by providing spanish translation and interpretation, childcare, and refreshments. Not only did those efforts enable more community members to participate and have their voices heard, expanded engagement also leveraged the strength of our region's diversity. Our programs and outreach expanded exponentially in 2016, but our development work did not. We expect our development work to catch up to our programming in 2017. Community conversations in 2016 community council engaged in a collaborative effort with blue mountain community foundation, sherwood trust, and united way of walla walla county to support a series of community conversations. The community conversations project was designed to engage community members in a dialogue about our region's future and the goal was to identify a set of regional priorities that could guide action. A number of outreach strategies were deployed to hear from as many residents of our region as possible. The collection of community treasures identified shared values and highlighted the region's many strengths. Large community workshops held in walla walla, dayton, waitsburg, and milton-freewater provided opportunities for community members to hear each other's ideas for the future. In addition to working with community organizers to reach a broader audience, we made those meetings more inclusive and accessible by providing refreshments, child care, and simultaneous spanish interpretation. A smaller workshop that specifically sought input from spanish-speaking latino residents was held at the carrie street community center in spanish, and provided a unique opportunity to hear from a part of our community whose voice is often left out of planning efforts. In addition, roundtable discussions, hosted by united way of walla walla county, engaged service clubs, youth centers, and areas businesses in conversations about challenges and possibilities. Finally, visioning documents from regional jurisdictions and organizations brought additional issues and opportunities into the conversation. All told, over 800 ideas were gathered, and in september a number of prioritizing workshops were convened where the list of ideas was winnowed down and community members identified their top goals. The top priorities (access to education, strong and diverse economy, health and wellbeing, care for nature, and safety, in that order) were revealed at a final celebration in december, which was attended by over 250 community members. Community indicators project community council continues to work towards the development of a set of indicators to support on-going efforts and identify new challenges. In january, we hosted a second "data walk" in collaboration with the washington state budget and policy center. This second data walk built upon what we had heard at the first data walk in december 2015: that latinos and young families were not well-represented at the meeting. To make the second data walk more accessible to those groups, we provided spanish versions of all data and analysis, simultaneous spanish interpretation during the meeting, childcare, and refreshments. We also expanded the geographic scope of the data to include the entire region, not just walla walla as was done in 2015. Making the meeting more inclusive and broadening the scope of the data allowed more community members to engage in substantive conversations about the state of our region's population, economy, environment, and schools. The data brought to light important issues that many people were not aware of, and established a shared vocabulary for thoughtful discussion. The data and a summary of what was learned from the data walks has been compiled in a report, building a better blue mountain region, which can be found on our website: http://www. Wwcommunitycouncil. Org/indicators. Aspx. Study process committees: study and implementation study committee: education as a path to economic growth the study committee met weekly from early september 2015 through mid-april 2016 to address the question, "how can we strategically invest in education as a way to drive economic growth in the region? " the committee examined many topics central to this question, including: the relationship between economic development and education, the regional labor market, inequities among educational outcomes, early learning, workforce education and trauma-informed learning. Speakers included employers, college presidents, school administrators, educators and economic development experts. Based on their study, the committee developed a series of recommendations that seek to increase student and employee engagement, address equity in educational outcomes, foster the development of 21st century skills, increase educational attainment throughout the region, and support student exposure to the workplace. The release of their report was celebrated at community council's annual luncheon in june, which was attended by over 400 people. Implementation task force: education as a path to economic growth the implementation task force took the recommendations from the study report and developed an implementation action plan, which was approved by the board in november. As we learned through community conversations, access to education is our region's top priority, and there is a significant amount of interest in working towards that goal. At the final community conversation meeting in december, over 45 individuals signed up to help support efforts to improve access to education. Because those goals align with the recommendations developed in the education as a path to economic growth study, those individuals will be invited to join the task force. Including more community members will create a more diverse and inclusive task force and will broaden advocacy efforts. The task force will continue their advocacy for implementation of the recommendations through the fall of 2018. Implementation task force: enhancing outdoor recreation opportunities the task force continues to champion the recommendations set forth in the enhancing outdoor recreation opportunities study. Significantly, in november, the region's cities, ports, counties, health departments, and other entities were awarded a technical support grant from the national park service - rivers, trails, and conservation assistance program for the development of a region-wide non-motorized trail and transportation network. This collaborative effort pulls together over 30 local, state, regional, and federal agencies who will work together over the next 16 months to develop a trials and transportation blueprint for our region. In the long term, by unlocking federal and state grant opportunities, this planning effort will increase outdoor recreation opportunities, enhance health and mobility, and promote a higher quality of life in the region. The task force continues to support the development of this project through participation on the steering committee and community outreach. In addition, building on the recent designation of walla walla as a bike friendly city (bronze level), the task force seeks ways to support other communities in the region pursue bike friendly status. The task force has also been working to support efforts to promote outdoor and environmental education. The task force will continue its work until fall 2017. Implementation task force: improving food security implementation of the improving food security recommendations has been extended several months in order to take advantage of new opportunities that directly align with the report's recommendations, and build upon work done to date. Notably, there is an opportunity to move forward on supporting the development of a scratch cooking program in local schools. In addition, two community health surveys, which were recommended by the study committee, have recently been completed and the data will be relevant to other recommendations in the study report. Due to the extension of the implementation phase, the task force's work will likely be celebrated in 2017, rather than fall 2016 as had been anticipated. 2016 community support our generous volunteers, donors, grantors, and sponsors allowed us to continue to engage our citizens in building a more vital and resilient region.