The Garden City Telegram
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Quality of life focus of meetings
Published 6/24/2009 in Local News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Nick Bowden, with Olsson Associates, stood Tuesday at the front of the meeting room in the Finney County Historical Museum, armed with a marker and ready to write what some Garden City residents feel are quality-of-life issues for the area.
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Brad Nading/Telegram — Tolan Seger, right, tees off the No. 9 hole at The Golf Club at Southwind Sunday during the City Golf Tournament as Verl Seger, left, and Carlos Prieto look on.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Nathan Preheim, right, and Nick Bowden, of Olsson Associates, speak Tuesday with a group of residents on what quality-of-life issues they see for the community.
During Tuesday's meeting — the second set in a series of meetings this week — with Bowden and Nathan Preheim, also of Olsson Associates, the group whittled down a list of more than 30 indicators of quality of life they feel are most important for Garden City to address.
The set of indicators chosen at the meeting, attended by 12 or so people, included effective government engagement; civility and neighborhood pride; economic vitality; educational infrastructure to meet community needs; educational success; recreation; access to health care; renewable energy; technology infrastructure and engagement; affordable housing; clean and available water; and perception of safety.
As Bowden wrote, the group listed off their ideas of what quality of life is, including Carole Geier saying she assumed it meant everyone already has had their basic needs met and then quality of life is the "extras" in life. Others saw quality of life as a chance to succeed, interesting/fun, having the basic needs secured so extras are allowed for, a feeling of community and more.
Olsson Associates is holding the meetings as part of updating Garden City's comprehensive plan. The firm first held visioning meetings in January to gather public input, and from those meetings, Bowden and Preheim developed five consistent themes of what the community wants to address: economic opportunity, quality of life, enhanced or revitalized downtown, enhanced gateways and enhanced parks and recreation.
In their meetings, Bowden and Preheim also like to deal with Monopoly money. Tuesday night was no different. All participants received $1,000 in Monopoly money and were told to prioritize the quality-of-life indicators they'd chosen by allocating money to the categories they feel are most important.
Affordable housing surfaced as the top indicator the group put their money in, with the indicator receiving $2,650; educational success was second with $2,220; educational infrastructure to meet community needs, $1,570; access to health care, $1,140; recreation, $1,200; civility and neighborhood pride, $1,120; economic vitality, $900; technology infrastructure and engagement, $720; perception of safety, $570; renewable energy, $510; clean and available water, $300; and effective government engagement, $140.
Out of the three different meetings Preheim and Bowden held Tuesday, all three groups had three different top concerns, with the first group choosing clean and available water as a top concern and educational infrastructure to meet community needs being the top in the second group.
Bowden describes quality of life as one of the more intangible themes he and Preheim deal with in their meetings. They plan to take Tuesday's recommendations and return with an indicator-type program for quality of life, giving the city a way to measure quality of life issues and eventually show whether the city's progressing or regressing.
Preheim and Bowden said a lot of communities will state they have a high quality of life, but rarely is there actually measurable data and other information to back the statement up.
Aside from allocating money to the various indicators, the group also wrote down suggestions of how the indicators could be measured and also some of what they'd like to see focused on for the indicators.
Under affordable housing, participants jotted down the need for low-income rental units, quality rentals, incentives for builders to build in Garden City, zoned land available for new construction and a trade school to teach carpentry, electrical work and plumbing for a new housing industry.
The next set of meetings by Olsson Associates will be mid-July to discuss economic opportunity, and then on July 15 and 16 they will run through each of the themes one more time before returning in late August with a draft for the city to consider. The plan will go to the planning commission for approval.
On the Web:
Garden City Comprehensive Plan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=68022919584&ref=ts
Garden City Comprehensive Plan Web site: http://www.oaplanning.com/gardencity/
How would you define quality of life? What should Garden City and its citizens do to improve quality of life here? Talk about it at SWKTalk.com.
Found 4 comment(s)!
quality of life
Quality of Life Indicators. Where did the 30+ indicators come from? Did Olsson conduct a statistically valid survey with the residents of Garden City and ask them what quality of life means to them and what indicates an acceptable quality of life? Or were the indicators from some other study and used in our community. Garden City is so unique in diversity that I would think the indicators should come from our residents not from another source. I hope that Olsson takes time to re-assess the indicators using our community as the source. Also, take the time to educate the residents about the meaning of "quality of life"...those who attended the meeting even struggled with the definition. If Garden City means to invest in this study, do it right!
Posted by: get real on 6/29/2009
Where were you?
For your information, roads scholar, these sessions were public sessions, open to all. Those of us who actually attended the meeting and provided meaningful input to our city's future were impressed with the discussion, content, and result of the meeting. As Nick said yesterday at the meetings, it really easy to complain, its much harder to be active and participate in community betterment.
Posted by: Mike H. on 6/25/2009
Why?
Why is an outside source doing this? Why Olsson and not some firm that is qualified?? Why listen to what only 12 people say? Why is the city not doing this themselves and getting input from a greater majority?
Posted by: roads scholar on 6/24/2009
Quality of life
I am not sure how to discribe this with words , so I will give it a try. Where ever the dirt is higher then the side walk or curb , what happens is , water runs off on to the side walk or over the curb. Also what happens at the area where the dirt is higher then the side walk or curb is the dirt turns up and rolls out , this is the place where weeds grow and grass will not grow. For water retention and weed control , the ground needs to be level and flat , not sloped or rounded. And the ground needs to be lower , A LOT LOWER the the side walk or curb. And I am not talking about 1/4 of a inch , when I say lower I mean LOWER. And in case you can not figure out why , then think about this , The water will stay in. The grass will stay thick and this will hold the water and control the weeds. Remember no sloping , and you ask why no sloping , water runs down hill ! Remember no rounded ground such as a knob or a hill , water runs down hill , and if rocks are piled on top then the rocks slide off. All this is true of public property and privite property. If your opinion is who cares then you need to think this through.
Posted by: Gene Sky on 6/24/2009
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