County Strategic Plan Meeting Reveals What Citizens Treasure

SPRING HILL – On February 4, the county held a strategic planning meeting at Pasco-Hernando State College’s Spring Hill campus. Dozens of citizens attended the Tuesday evening workshop to provide their input on a blueprint that would instruct our local leaders on the people’s priorities through 2030 and beyond.

“The goal [is to have] one document that will guide the current board and the future ones in the next three to five years on what they should do, what they should prioritize, and what things are important for overall for citizens of the county going forward,” County Administrator Jeff Rogers said.

Angela Crist, Director of the Florida Institute of Government at USF, noted that the strategic planning process is a “fluid and flexible” one. Even if priorities shift slightly down the line, the protocol guarantees that the mission and the goals set forth by the proposal remain the same.

Crucially, this process is “participatory,” Crist added. Otherwise, it would not properly reflect our denizens’ desires. This leads to the main event of Tuesday’s gathering: determining the county’s “treasures,” discovering what must be addressed, and deciding what goals to prioritize.

With instruction from Andrea Henning, Collaborative Labs at St. Petersburg College, attendees voted on the issues via an interactive app (pollev.com/colabs). This method ensured that “every voice is heard” and that citizens had the opportunity to “elevate the things that are most important to them,” Henning said.

Henning and company compiled a list of high-priority issues revealed by a crowd of 48 attendees at a community forum on December 18. Tuesday’s slightly smaller crowd would ultimately whittle these lists down further to determine the most pressing subjects across the aforementioned categories.

Hernando County Strengths/Treasures:
Natural Resources (waterways, springs, hiking trails, etc.)
Rural Character and Agricultural Lifestyle
Small-Town Feel
Public Safety
Limited Development
Access to Gulf Waters and Recreation
Undeveloped Beaches and Waterfront

One citizen summed up the smaller, rural feel well: “You can still see the tractors […] If you are from Brooksville, you are usually turning your radio on, enjoying the slow ride for a minute, following behind, the hay hitting you in the face.”

Future Opportunities to Address:
Preserving the Nature Coast
Maintaining the Rural County Character
Protecting Green Spaces and the Tree Canopy
Ensuring Adequate Water Quality and Supply
Ideal Visionary Goals and Future Strategic Priorities: (Attendees split into seven groups and voted)
Reduce Homelessness within county urban areas.
Alignment of the strategic plan with the comprehensive plan (land use) and appropriate funding for infrastructure to support projected growth.
Infrastructure to support sustainability, quality of life, and environment.
Enforce current zoning laws with enhanced employment and training for code enforcement – use what we got!
Responsible land use and following the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Complete land conservation vision (Florida Wildlife Corridor).
Enforce and review the comprehensive plan according to existing county policy.

Citizens further zeroed in on a few of these topics such as the alignment of the strategic and comprehensive plans as well as infrastructure and preservation of agricultural zoning in Hernando County.

At the end of “phase one,” the collected data will be presented to the board of county commissioners sometime around May. The county will meet with citizens in the fall to officially approve the specifics of the document and work on developing strategies to ensure that citizens’ feedback actively informs decisions the board makes over the coming years.

Further details about Tuesday’s meeting can be found at engagehernando.com/strategicplan, including the results of a resident feedback survey and a county employee survey, Crist added.

Here, county citizens can review “all information for what we have done so far,” said Crist. “[…] any information that you want about the process is transparent to you.”