OneDecatur – the city’s community based and community built comprehensive plan with the interest of moving The River City forward – continues to serve as a roadmap for progress in Decatur. The six-part plan focuses on critical quality of life issues and addresses everything from beautification, mobility, residential and business development, strengthening our labor force, empowering our communities and laying a foundation to build the next generation of the city.
This plan is many things, but what it is not is a plan to sit on a shelf and collect dust. It is a living and active document to serve as a blueprint for what’s next. In the implementation of that plan, a committee of approximately 20 community and business leaders meets each month to walk through the plan line by line to discuss, strategize and complete action items called for in the plan.
This group – known as the OneDecatur Implementation & Review Task Team and a subcommittee of the City’s Planning Commission – comes from organizations like the City’s Planning Department, Decatur City Schools, members of the Planning Commission, the Decatur-Morgan Chamber of Commerce, Decatur Morgan County Tourism, Decatur Jaycees, private businesses, the arts community, and various neighborhoods from across Decatur with the mission of making sure there is forward movement on the goals of the plan.
If action items are getting done, they are crossed off the list and celebrated. If items are slower moving or need more time and resources, the group studies the issue and strategizes what organizations and resources are needed for success. The group is driven by solutions and results.
In early 2020, you will hear more about the work of OneDecatur and the ongoing impact on our city. Yes, there is work to be done. But much has already been accomplished from OneDecatur towards the goal of making The River City even more welcoming, more prosperous, more attractive and better equipped to be the destination community we dream about.