This past Saturday, May 18, I attended a new annual event in Frederick County, Maryland.
Envision Essentials is a 4 part public workshop from Envision Frederick County. Each of the programs presents how we are impacted by decisions about how our cities and towns are organized and shines a light on how those decisions are made. The one day programs are fun, informative, with lunch included in the fee.
The place you live and everything you love about it, someone had a plan for some or all of it; someone had a hand in creating it.
Today that someone is you.
Where I live, Woodsboro, Maryland, a delightful, tiny town, had to start sometime, beginning with the path, the trail, then the road. At some point someone decided that the location was right for houses and industry. Here it’s farming and limestone quarries.
Over the decades and centuries houses increased, nested into the natural landscape on hills or buffered from the weather by hills. At every stage choices were made according to desires and needs.
Envision Essentials, workshops for the community
Planning serves the same purpose today, to fill our needs, yours and mine and our children. Every town, city, county and state has guidelines and enforceable rules for private and public property and utilities. Each of us, including you, can add your voice to the decisions that affect us all every day.
We have tools of government which may sound dull and be a yawn in party conversation; Planning and zoning, Appeals Process, Comprehensive-Documentation-of-Everything.
But they are not dull. They are tools of action that bring us Clean Water, Efficient Road Systems, Green Spaces in our Urban Landscape.
Envision Essentials aims to give you the opportunity to learn how these things work in Frederick County, MD, and how you fit into the decision process.
The Players
- Your Elected Officials
- Government Office Staff
These people are your friends, neighbors, colleagues, and family. Envision Essentials’ first program introduced us to people who do some of this work, who go to work everyday just like you and me and try to make a difference in our lives.
This summer of 2019 you can attend 3 more programs showcasing locations around Frederick County, MD.
- Saturday, June 15 Local Non-Profit Organizations & Advocacy Training, Bar-T Mountainside
- Saturday, June 29, Environmental Issues in Frederick County, Middletown Valley
- Saturday, July 20, Local Government Elected Officials, City Hall and Downtown Frederick
Sign up on the Envision Essentials page.
Someone planned the life you are living now.
Conditions will change.
Today that someone is all of us.
Excellent article, Dorothea – thanks so much!
Thank you Dorothea for your blog and for joining us for our inaugural event!