Chickamauga Councilman Evitte Parrish, left, and City Manager Micheal Haney are ready to launch the Renaissance Strategic Visioning and Planning Steering Committee. Various focus groups will report their findings to the committee.The city of Chickamauga is using a $50,000 grant to establish a master plan for the city.
The money comes from the Georgia Downtown Renaissance Partnership, which assists cities with downtown strategic visioning, planning, design and technical services through several different programs. The city’s grant is part of the Renaissance Strategic Visioning program.
A steering committee is establishing focus groups: Merchants Association Focus Group, Chickamauga City Schools Focus Group, Chickamauga Historical Focus Group and Chickamauga Recreation Focus Group. The steering committee is still recruiting more committee and focus group members.
“Anyone that lives in the city that’s a stakeholder, we will interview them and see what they would like to see in the city either structurally or activities-wise,” said Councilman Evitte Parrish. “We will do one-on-one interviews with stakeholders to help the Chickamauga City Council develop a city [strategic] plan. The focus groups will be interviewed and their thoughts and ideas will be brought back to the steering committee to help form the plan. We are waiting to find out if others will accept the invitation to join the steering committee.”
The focus groups are open to anyone that each focus group pertains to, he said.