Planning Issues In Depth

Dave Ward takes the helm as the Central Coast Section Director

by Dave Ward

In January I will take over the driver’s seat for the Section. Over the last year in the Director-Elect role, I’ve received great mentoring from previous Section Directors.  This has been invaluable and it is clear to me I have big shoes to fill over the next two years.

My tenure is aligning, by coincidence only, with an opportunistic time for the Section. Due to a remarkable dedciation and performance by our local Host Conference Commitee, the Santa Barbara state conference in October was a huge success exceeding expectations not only in the conference sessions and events, but in revenues generated for both the state chapter and our local section. It is these revenues, coming every 8-9 years that funds the activities at the local level. Therefore the Section Board and membership will have an opportunity to relook at current programs and activities for continuance and also new endeavors that advance APA values and objectives.

Beyond the revenues coming to the Section, the Board embarked on a survey effort last fall to solicit membership feedback and thoughts. Three themes emerged from the survey: the membership is seeking more professional development opportunities, receiving information regarding local and regional planning issues, and engaging in more pubilc educartion and outreach efforts.

With this feedback, the Board has spent the last 2 meetings brainstorming on ideas and new approaches that can achieve these membership objectives. Separate work has been done at the subcommittee level focusing on ways to outreach and grow the membership and another subcommittee focusing on use of conference funds. Our next Board meeting on January 28th in Santa Barbara will continue this discussion by setting a work plan and action items.

There are also programs and activities at other sections around the state that are a resource for new ideas for the Central Coast. As Director, Kim worked with other section directors to engage in a “best practicies” discussion and to begin compiling that into a manual. I will continue this effort on the manual and hope we can implement some of these ideas throughout all of our subsections.

As we do activities in 2012 it is critical that members continue to provide feedback on how the organization can best meet your needs. As Director, I will be working with Board to ensure we can maintain and enhance our value to each individual member.

Happy Holidays and see you at our activities/events in 2012!

Dave Ward

Director – CCAPA Central Coast

Planning Manager, City of Ventura

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 at 12:33 am and is filed under: Openspace, People.