Job Description

Committee Purposes

Provide overall management of the vision process
Identify and coordinate with existing City bodies who can add value
Provide guidance and advice for the community visioning process regarding community engagement, data gathering and data interpretation
Gather feedback from the community about needs, aspirations, and values that they would like to characterize the community in the future
Develop and conduct community outreach and survey methodologies to validate a community-wide perspective on these needs, aspirations and values
Develop a draft vision/positioning statement for community reaction and Commission adoption
Provide a comprehensive analysis from data publicly collected, including majority and significant minority views.

Committee membership and operational requirements

Commitment to role as an active listener throughout the visioning process with an understanding that their role is not one of an advocate
Commitment to actively participate during the life of the Committee
All meetings will be publicly noticed and held in a facility that will enable public observation

Time Frame and Schedule

It is desired that the Visioning Committee complete its work within six to nine months. Should this time frame become problematic, the Committee shall propose to Council a time frame it can commit to.

Work Tasks and Suggested Schedule

Committee members will be responsible for developing strategies and tactics on community outreach, community awareness campaigns, formulating questions and survey mechanisms, and all other processes that will help the Committee understand and express resident desires for Worthington’s future. The Committee will make requests to Council for all funding and resources necessary to accomplish these goals consistent with the Committee’s project architecture.

The Committee will work with a professional facilitator at times agreed upon by the Committee and the facilitator.

Visioning Process Phases

A conceptual framework for the visioning process is broken into four phases including:

Phase 1: Community listening - In this phase, Committee members are neutral listeners. Their role here is to listen to the community and understand what they are saying, not to debate it or put forth their own view.

Phase 2: Education Period and Environmental Scan - In this phase, Committee members are asked to develop evaluation methods to determine the knowledge level of Worthington residents. Subsequently, develop education campaign methods to inform residents and improve results for the visioning process.

Phase 3: Survey - In this phase, Committee members are asked to work with the facilitator to develop and asses scientifically valid survey tools that meet the following conditions:

Is the survey itself clear and understandable?
Can the respondent be fairly asked to respond? Is there some knowledge required in order to be able to answer the question?
Are the questions neutral or is there some implicit bias?
Does it cover all the relevant points?
Do these survey help provide information about trade-off preferences?

Phase 4: Statement of Analysis - In this phase, Committee members are asked to analyze the data from the community outreach, and develop information that can be shared with the public and Council. Their role as analyst is to understand if there is broad agreement among the community.

Time Commitment

It will be the Committee’s responsibility to determine the frequency, agendas, and specific tasks of committee meetings, as well as resulting member assignments. It would not be unreasonable for the committee to meet weekly, on a weekday evening, for 90 minutes each week, during significant portions of the process.

Understanding that City Council wants to include residents with a wide range of background and experience, it is expected that some Committee members may not be able to attend all evening meetings due to personal constraints. We encourage the Committee to be sensitive to these prior commitments and to be creative with how Committee members can fulfill the Committee responsibilities. The Committee itself can choose whether or not teleconferencing - or if alternative ways of communication - is an acceptable means of participation.

Additionally, in order to enable the Committee to interact with City Council, it may occasionally be requested that the Committee meets immediately prior (at 6:30) to a regular Monday night City Council meeting (7:30).

Committee Member Attributes

The ideal committee members would bring the following attributes:

Ability to listen and balance various perspectives
Ability to critically evaluate assumptions
Ability to read and absorb survey and other data points
A willingness to openly state their interests while respecting the interests of others whether similar or different
A willingness to seek solutions that represent the long-term best interests of the City

Committee Chair

The committee should not feel obligated to select the chair in the first meeting. It is important for committee members to experience each others’ personalities and possible skill sets. Duties include:

Chair the visioning meetings
Develop agendas with staff support and facilitator
Manage agendas to ensure full discussion of all viewpoints
Manage the meetings to ensure productive use of time, maintaining focus on the agenda topic and promoting civil conversation and discussion
Actively seek to develop committee consensus where possible, and acknowledge non-consensus viewpoints in the record
Review meeting minutes to ensure accuracy
Manage public comment when scheduled
City staff will take meeting minutes and will distribute agendas to committee members based on items and topics decided by the chair and vice-chair