More than 80 people turned out on the evening of June 14th to hear Create the Vision present their first annual report to the public. Create the Vision is the joint Comprehensive Plan for Centerville and Washington Township that was adopted at a joint meeting of the City Council and Township Trustees on June 14, 2004.

The Annual Report was presented at a Create the Vision Open House held at Rec West in Washington Township. Serving as keynote speaker was Sylvia Lovely, President of NewCities Institute and CEO of Kentucky League of Cities.

The Annual Report provided details on the implementation status of Create the Vision’s eight goals, 51 objectives and 198 strategies. “The success of Create the Vision is measured in relation to tangible evidence of implementation,” said Brooks Compton, Centerville Councilmember and Co-Chair of the Create the Vision Implementation Task Force. “Each goal contains a related set of objectives and strategies in which a time frame and responsible party or parties are identified. Extraordinary accomplishments have been made in each category of Create the Vision,” he said. “The Implementation Task Force has reviewed 99 strategies and made 47 recommendations to the City of Centerville and Washington Township.”

The Implementation Task Force was appointed the same time the plan was adopted. “Their role is to provide leadership to guide the City of Centerville and Washington Township in successfully accomplishing the far-reaching goals of the Create the Vision plan,” said Tom Zobrist, Fiscal Officer for Washington Township and also Co-Chair of the Implementation Task Force.

The City of Centerville and Washington Township have initiated, acted upon and/or completed 120 strategies with the cooperation of the following partners; the Centerville City School District, the Centerville-Washington Park District, Washington-Centerville Public Library, Hithergreen Senior Center of Centerville/Washington Township, the Centerville Washington Township Historical Society, Montgomery County, Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, and the Ohio Department of Transportation.

“The City of Centerville and Washington Township have both contracted with ACP Visioning & Planning to assist them in updating their zoning and land use codes and ordinances. This work is expected to be complete by year’s end 2006 in which 38 Create the Vision strategies will be enacted upon,” said Zobrist. “In addition, Create the Vision was honored with a proclamation from the Montgomery County Commissioners in June 2005 and Create the Vision received an award of excellence from the Ohio City/County Management Association for Intergovernmental Cooperation in January 2006,” said Compton.

The next meeting of the Implementation Task Force will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12th at the Washington Township Fire Headquarters, located at 8320 McEwen Road in Dayton. Tom Ireland, Chief Technology Officer for Miami Valley Communications Council will be making a presentation on technology advances in the community. The meeting is free and open to the public.