By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Starting as a Strategic Doing event around three years ago, the Imagine Ellis County Committee has once again begun moving full steam ahead on its mission of creating a stronger county.
As the committee continues developing an idea of what the county will look like in the future, the group recently presented at the Grow Hays quarterly luncheon.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams opened the event recognizing the recent effort to revitalize the committee after the COVID-19 pandemic slowed efforts.
First to present was Hays mayor Sandy Jacobs, who shared information about the origins of the effort.
Jacobs recounted over 150 community leaders gathered together and generated a long list of ideas for improving Ellis County for years to come, filling the walls of the Robins Center with ideas to improved the county during the Strategic Doing event.
"We ended up with a room full of sticky notes," she said. "And I mean a room full. ... Every wall in the Robins Center was full of little yellow sticky notes."
Those notes were compiled in order to give the group direction in a variety of categories.
But as COVID took hold, efforts took a back seat to more immediate concerns.
"So it kind of fell apart, but fortunately Sarah Wasinger has just been instrumental in getting this group back together," Jacobs said. "And I'm so pleased that we have young people — like they're so engaged in the process because it is looking at Hays 10, 15 and 25 years down the road."
And while years have passed since the effort was launched, she said nothing has changed, with many of the concerns as relevant now as they were then and many from the original committee still active in the organization.
Passing the meeting to Wasinger, she noted the long list of area leaders that remain committed to the effort.
"It's been a very exciting process to just have all of these folks engaged," Wasinger said. "We do have people who either live or work in Eills, Victoria, of course, Hays, and Catherine and Munjor. So these are people being a part of this process, who are not only living in these communities but trying to make a big difference."
She said from the beginning the project was a fluid effort, designed to address input from all.
"So one thing that we really talked about from the very precipice of this project was what should our mission be," Wasinger said. "And we revised this mission based on some things that we felt needed to change a little bit. So our current mission is to imagine, develop and implement a collaborative strategic vision for our community and region."
She said the power behind Imagine Ellis County is a large amount of buy-in from community members that will utilize resources from various agencies, government departments and commercial interests.
"That is truly the power behind Imagine Ellis County and where we feel this project is so very important," Wasinger said.
And that project is now full steam ahead.
"We've met about 14 times now since let's see September of 2019. And in that time, we've devised a couple of committees that are really going to be focused on doing some intentional work." Wasinger said.
Current the steering committee is really the guiding group that helps establish meeting agendas in person on behalf of Imagine Ellis County, she said.
"And we'll present public meetings and do other things as necessary to make sure that the work that this group is doing is an educated correctly to the community," Wasinger said. "But going forward, we really see that group as being kind of the guiding force on creating the content that we'll discuss every month."
And while other committees will be doing valuable work to push the effort ahead, she said the marketing and technology committee has been doing a lot of work in the background, and area residents will soon see more from the group through their efforts.
If you are a Facebook user, we would love for you to come at least follow the page for right now," Wasinger said. "We are just starting to put content on that. So as we do have different projects and things progress or different community-wide means that we'll be inviting the public to that will be one of the main ways that we can kind of really share that information."
A website is also being developed that will showcase the group's efforts.
While the marketing online is coming together she also said their events committee, was also working on setting up town hall meetings to solicit input moving forward.
"A lot of the information that we have been gathering is going to be organic in nature, we want to hear feedback from people and all of the different cities that exist in Ellis County," Wasinger said.
"The only way that this is really going to work and be as impactful as you want it to be is that we have the community members sharing and expressing what their vision is of Ellis County, that's the power of what we're doing together. If we can have their buy-in from the very beginning, and know what is important to them. That gives us as a committee a better set of marching orders and parameters to starting the fight against that exist in the county."