SCHUYLKILL, PA-"The ayes have it..Shadle, Tobash vote to OK bond" was the headline on April 26, 2000 in the Pottsville REPUBLICAN. The Schuylkill County Commission voted 2 to 1 to approve a $10 million bond issue for economic development, conservation and county facility improvements. After eight public hearings and some revision to the project list, this historic vote was approved by a bipartisan vote of a democrat and republican with a republican opposed. The Vision Infrastructure Team developed the original bond issue list of projects.

WILKES, NC-The County Commission voted 5-0 in the next step of funding $46 million for simultaneous construction of four new middle schools. This is up from 4-1 on the first vote in November 1999. This construction program is a real victory for the community that resulted from a grass roots effort led by the Wilkes Vision Education Foundation Team.

LAKELAND, FL-The Lakeland Ledger printed the 12-page Metro Lakeland Vision’s First Annual report as a public service. The report was an insert in the April 20,2000 newspaper.

MINOT, ND- This Visioning team is making extensive use of "listserver" technology to maintain communications within their eleven Strategic Alliances, six Foundation teams and Benchmark Team. In a March 23, 2000 e-mail, Amy Moen, Vision staff said,

"Life is really kicking in Minot, Henry. In early times I too questioned
the limits of Visioning, "is it only words on paper?" But now that I am
at the alliance meetings and see many organizations sitting down
together, developing action steps and getting excited about what can be
done, I AM A TRUE BELIEVER!!!"

ASHEVILLE, NC-The Asheville-Buncombe Vision, Inc. projected budget for 1999-2000 anticipates revenues of $108,415, in-kind contribution of $9,833 and a budget for an annual Dialogues project of $66,067. The basic operations are supported 46% by the government and 54% by the private sector. Asheville-Buncombe Vision, Inc. has financial commitments for three years of the basic operations budget.

SCHUYLKILL, PA-The Schuylkill Vision raised $35,000 with the "Fantasy Night Auction" on April 14^th. This is a unique funding approach that produced an enjoyable evening for over 200 attendees.

SPOKANE, WA-By e-mail on May 10, 2000, Rich Hadley and Janelle Fallan report,

Here are two of the strategies from the New Century Plan, developed in 1996:

From the Economic Development Foundation:
Deliver comprehensive engineering education, post secondary through the
doctoral level, that meets the needs of the region's current and future
employers.

From the Education Foundation:
Develop the region's colleges and universities into a world class higher education consortium that exports education, prepares students for the highly technical jobs of the information age, delivers comprehensive engineering education post secondary through the doctoral level, and meets the needs of the region's employers and students.

Just last month, Washington State University at Spokane, the University of Idaho (Moscow) and Gonzaga University, Spokane, announced a BS in Computer Engineering, a collaborative baccalaureate completion degree program. In the Engineering Degree Consortium, WSU, UI and GU each provide approximately one-third of the courses in the curriculum. Students register at and receive a degree from the institution of their choice. All courses will be available in the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene corridor.

This collaborative program is designed with an emphasis on computer/digital
and systems aspects to meet the expressed needs of industry in the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area. Real-world learning experiences are built into the program through required design projects inspired by industry and jointly taught by the three institutions. The program is designed for working professional, with the assumption that students will take 4 years to finish the junior/senior years. Just consider the jurisdictional issues here: state institutions from two states (and one of them is a branch campus), plus a private university. No wonder they held a reception to celebrate! The local business communities
and high tech community sees this as an outstanding achievement.

More information: www.spokane.wsu.edu ; www.gonzaga.edu ; www.uicda.uidaho.edu .

MOBILE, AL-On May 3, 2000, Henry Luke met with the Envision Mobile-Baldwin’s Steering Committee for a 2-3/4 year implementation review. Mobile-Baldwin has made great progress including:

Many Strategic Alliances working on individual strategies

Organizations using Envision as the basis for their Strategic Plan

Strengthened public/private partnership

Regional Approach..Mobile-Baldwin and beyond

Two excellent annual meetings and reports

Historical data developed for strategies to help in setting benchmarks

Last week..committing Ginny Russell full-time to provide management/staff support for Envision

JACKSONVILLE, FL-On May 8^th, Mayor John Delaney proposed a $2.2 billion infrastructure construction program. The "Better Jacksonville Plan" includes a 1/2¢ sales tax increase that will be voted on by the citizens in September or November. The plan includes $1.5 billion for roads, $165 million for environmental quality, $60 million for targeted economic development and $490 million for public facilities. About $800 million of the road money is available from existing sources according to the recent report of a task force appointed by City Council President, Ginger Soud.

ASHEVILLE, NC-The Asheville-Buncombe Vision December 1999 newsletter contained the following:

The decision to drop out of school costs $451,140. It would take 30 years working 365 days a year for 8 hours a day at $5.15 an hour to make up the difference between a high school gradate and a dropout.

The poverty rate among high school dropouts is estimated at 31%-ten time that of college graduates.

89% of prison inmate are high school dropouts.

Dropouts, on the average, earn $6,415 less per year than high school graduates.

Dropouts are not adequately prepared to enter a more technologically oriented work force and are 72% more likely to remain unemployed.

Each year’s class of dropouts will cost the country over $200 billion during their lifetimes in lost earnings and unrealized tax revenue.

Girls who drop out of school are more likely to become pregnant at an early age and more likely to be a single parent.

Dropouts are more likely to receive public assistance and on the average earn 27% less than a high school graduate.

Students from low-income families are 2.4 time more likely to drop out of school than are children from middle-income families.

Past Collaborative Implementation Reports (Newsletter) can be reviewed by choosing one of the links below.

Henry Luke

  to view the PDF format, you will need this free download from Adobe if you do not already have it.

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“America's Leading Community VISION Facilitator”