County Board Attends Strategic Planning Workshop

by Blake Proctor

The County Commission met on July 7^th at the Curtis L. Brown Field airport conference room for a 2 pm-5 pm workshop, the second in a series of strategic planning sessions assisted by Fountainworks Facilitation Consultants out of Raleigh.

The June14^th introductory meeting lasted but an hour and had led off with “Strategic Planning 101,” familiarizing the Board with the broad concept of strategic planning. A project review timeline was then presented and the July 7^th meeting set.

With all Commissioners in attendance, Board Chairman Charles Ray Peterson called this second workshop to order at 2 pm; Commissioner Cameron McGill led off with the invocation but, as no American flag was at hand, the Pledge of Allegiance was foregone.

On hand to facilitate the workshop were Fountainworks President Warren Miller and Senior Facilitation Management Consultant Julie Brenman, assisted by staff Emily Wilson and Laura Robinson. Also in attendance to audit the session was Becky Spearman of the North Carolina Extension Service.

Mr. Miller reiterated that strategic planning asks three questions:

·         Where are we now?

·         Who do we want to be in the future? And,

·         How do we get there?

This third question, Mr. Miller asserted, was to be answered by the Focus Workgroups. He then segued into the planning concept of community buy-in through citizens’ vision inputs for the Board’s consideration. Said he, “The community’s core values are at the base of all the actions that need to be taken.”

In Bladen County’s case, these inputs would come from, six focus area workgroups; tailored to the County’s own perceptions from the previous meeting, they include:

·         Environment and Agriculture to preserve the natural environment of the county while enhancing its agricultural prosperity;

·         Healthy Community to develop a strategic vision to enhance the health of county residents;

·         Quality Education to ensure a county residents of all ages have access to quality educational resources, from pre-school through K-12, community college and on, to lifelong learning;

·         Prosperous Economy to develop a strategic vision for strengthening the local economy and providing abundant jobs for the residents;

·         Safe and Prepared Community to create a vision to make the county a safe community by looking at the various public safety entities currently providing those services;

·         Community Infrastructure, Housing & Transit to explore increasing access to affordable housing, establishing public transportation opportunities, and envisioning other infrastructure needs to make Bladen an attractive community.

Throughout all these workgroups, recommendations will consider in their recommendations, equity, equality, and fair application and accessibility across diverse groups regardless of race, gender, or age. The result will be a comprehensive twenty-year vision, broken into manageable five-year planning increments.

Mr. Miller advised the Board that today’s session was to generate the Big Vision; the workgroups will be sifting that Vision down to workable pieces. He stated unequivocally that all planning outcomes must tie in with annual budgetary constraints.

Reviewing the events, both good and bad, that have shaped Bladen County over the last thirty or so years, the Board agreed that Smithfield coming to the county, the NC87 bypass, the Cape Fear Valley Hospital’s buyout of the county hospital, and the addition of the surface water treatment plant at Smithfield were major pluses.

Conversely, some events that have hurt the county most have been mill closures, shrinking public school attendance, the several recessions over the period, the pH issue at White Lake over the past several years, Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, and of course the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

One issue that was considered both a positive and a negative, depending on how it was portrayed  was the county’s rural quality of life – either idyllic and quiet for those who like their laidback comfort, or too laid back by those who thrive on city life

The single most important visioning activity undertaken by Board members at this workshop was a participatory brainstorming exercise to write the County’s “Cover Story” vision for a theoretical 2031 magazine issue.

In this drill, the Commission was broken into two teams; each team was to assemble and fill out duplicate magazine “paste-up boards” based on where they saw the county in 2031.

After thirty minutes, a spokesperson for each team presented their team’s 2031 magazine mockup.

What was surprising to this reporter were the similarities of the work output by the two teams. This seems to indicate that the entire Commission is aware of Bladen County’s strengths and weaknesses and is focused on parallel visions for the County’s future.

A short sampling of comments from the two “competing” magazines include these:

·         “What better place to work from home than Bladen County?”

·         “The Cape Fear River is an untapped resource.”

·         “The County needs to have an ongoing dialog with each of the towns.”

·         “There must be collaboration among all participants, public and private.”

·         “The county and the industrial park together should be promoted as ‘a place to work, play & live’.”

The final piece of business was determining who to invite to sit on the six focus area workgroups. An initial list for each committee had already been drawn up based on their professional expertise and was refined by adding and culling potential members in order to keep committees to a manageable level of eight to twelve.

Chairman Peterson and Commissioner Dr. Ophelia Munn-Goins will take the lead in an effort to contact these names to determine their interest in sitting on the prospective committees.

Once determined, these citizens will comprise the Focus Workgroups quickly so they can begin meeting in August and have recommendations to the Commission by Thanksgiving, 2021.

The next full visioning meeting between Fountainworks and the Board will be on an as-yet-unscheduled date during the first quarter of 2022.

A fulfilled but evidently exhausted Board adjourned the workshop at 5:17 pm.