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July 13, 2021 | Spotlight

City of Fort Oglethorpe RSVP gathering public input through survey

The historic military parade ground was purchased by the city and was used for a school in addition to a public park. The original bandstand, pictured, still stands on the grounds.

Writer: Courtney Alford-Pomeroy

The City of Fort Oglethorpe seeks public input as it embarks on a Renaissance Strategic Vision and Plan (RSVP) engagement. The RSVP is a master planning and visioning process provided by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government and is designed to bring community voices together to identify issues and begin working toward a shared vision.

Input is essential to the RSVP process. Local leaders encourage participation in the Fort Oglethorpe Downtown RSVP through the public survey at https://www.fortoglethorpersvp.com/.

Funded through the generous support of the Lyndhurst Foundation, the Fort Oglethorpe Downtown Renaissance Strategic Vision and Plan (RSVP) project also is supported by the Georgia Municipal Association and Georgia Cities Foundation.

The RSVP process assists cities through the creation of a community-supported vision, plan, and implementation program. The RSVP is both a master planning process and a visioning document that illustrates the community’s vision for the future and provides the steps to get there. Driven by a robust public input process that seeks the participation of all community members, RSVPs help local governments and community partners prioritize top issues and work to establish a consensus around what must be achieved in the short and long term.

RSVPs help communities better understand their assets, more clearly identify their priorities, and use them both as a basis for planning. Throughout the development of the plan, the community identifies issues that are affecting the community, articulates big-picture goals, and develops short and long-term strategies to address the issues. Those strategies, and their critical and carefully developed implementation steps, provide a unique checklist of sorts to guide the community forward.

The RSVP process is being led by a local Steering Committee: Keith Barcliff, Jonathan Connell, Jeff Epperson, Amy Faulkner, Charles Faulkner, Molly F. Huhn, Amy Jackson, Rhonda James, Courtney Johnson, Jeff Long, Chris McKeever, Ian O'Shea, Rick Quarle, Denia Reese, Derek Rogers, Keith Sewell, and Dan Wright.

Take part in this plan and share your vision for downtown Fort Oglethorpe through the RSVP survey at https://www.fortoglethorpersvp.com/.

For more information about the RSVP, please visit https://www.fortoglethorpersvp.com/ or contact Bryan Perry, Projects Coordinator, 706.866.2544, ext. 1207 or bperry@fortoglethorpega.gov.