Town-wide visioning project launched

WARWICK — Community 2000, in partnership with the Town of Warwick and the Villages of Florida, Greenwood Lake and Warwick, is organizing a major effort to create a shared vision for the future of the entire Warwick community.
The four municipalities have funded the major part of this project and have designated Community 2000 to be project manager.
At a meeting on June 26, about 25 people gathered at Warwick Town Hall to hear project consultant Gianni Longo explain how the 2017 Visioning would work. He was addressing the newly formed Visioning Steering Committee and other community leaders representing diverse sectors of town and villages.
Deja vuLongo is the same consultant who led the successful 1993 Visioning that was the starting point for Community 2000. That project led to many great outcomes, including the Warwick Farmers Market (and there are now three more), the PDR program and the preservation of farmland and the Summer Arts Festival among other efforts.
Many in the audience said they were encouraged by what they heard.
"This exciting opportunity," Mayor Jesse Dwyer of Greenwood Lake said, "will effectively include the many unique aspects of the three villages and the town into one collaborative visioning project.”
Rosemary Cooper, director of the Albert Wisner Public Library, added: “Libraries are one of the key building blocks of any community and we are happy and excited to help shape this vision for Warwick's future."
Town-wide survey to lead to 'Community Voices'The current visioning project — and coming up with its official name will be one of the first task of the Steering Committee — will be planned over the summer months and will move into high gear in the fall and early winter months.
Focus groups will be used to create a town-wide survey; and the survey, which will include separate sections for the three villages, will lead to the “Community Voices” process that will gather ideas from hundreds of residents.
In all, the hope is to have more than 1,000 residents and business owners take part.
Longo said this process is “designed to produce a multi-dimensional vision — a vision that harmonizes the town’s priorities with those of the participating villages” and to “create a vision that is strategic and implementable, bold yet doable."