Residents map G’town goals for 15 years hence
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Citizens, including one in hospital scrubs, joined Germantown public safety leaders one night last week and spent about two hours discussing what fire and police protection might look like in 15 years.
Over the past five weeks, the group has assessed the city’s status — including response times to emergencies and non-emergencies — and improvements needed by 2030. The group studied growth corridors and census projections and what those mean for police and fire services as the landlocked city grows up (vertically) instead of out.
In its final meeting last Tuesday, the public safety task force — one of seven subgroups working on the suburb’s Germantown Forward 2030 plan — narrowed its ideas to three or four goals, created action plans, prioritized the time frame (short-, medium- or long-range) and mapped out its key performance indicators so in 2030, city leaders will know how well they both anticipated and met customer expectations.
“I’m just a mom with kids in school,” said Joanna Young, who was surprised when she was asked to be part of the public safety study.
“I’m interested in response times. If I’m in a situation where I need help, I need somebody there quickly. I need my community to be safe so my kids have a safe place to play and can walk to neighborhood parks.”
Seven other groups are winding up the same process, projecting long- and short-term wishes for education, economic development, quality of life, city services and environmental quality in Germantown.
No consultant was hired to lead the discussion or frame talking points. For the first time in Germantown — which regularly seeks citizen opinion — the longrange plan is coming directly from the people.
A 30-member steering committee, representing the city’s demographics in age, race, gender and the part of town they live, was selected in January.
“The board (of mayor and aldermen) came to the first meeting,” said City Administrator Patrick Lawton. “It was, ‘Thanks for being here. We appreciate your commitment to the community. Adios.’
“We don’t want political input into this,” Lawton said. “The board wanted it truly grass roots.”
Final reports from the task forces are trickling in. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen will be asked to approve the plan, including a citizen-written vision statement, when the process wraps up this fall.
Kevin Lahner, city administrator in Waukesha, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee, said the notion of citizens as savvy, sophisticated customers has gained traction in the past five years.
“It’s becoming more common to make the effort to reach out to citizens in formulating everything from strategic plans to the budget,” he said.
“There’s always part of the reach-out process that is an education process. When you have these types of interactions, it helps educate the public on the daily operations and your challenges and opportunities as a city.”
Cities that don’t connect run the risk of being out of touch, he said, “which is one of the worst things that can happen when you work in government.”
Any citizen could apply to serve on a task force. Some department heads did their own recruiting to make sure they had “out-of-the-box” thinkers on the committees, Lawton said.
“We tried to find people who expressed an interest, but if you looked at their qualifications, they might not indicate they have areas of expertise,” he said.
“You really don’t want just the experts,” said Germantown Fire Chief John Selberg, a leader for the public safety group. “You want people who say, ‘You know this crap about you guys getting to our house in eight minutes is not going to cut it.’”
His group decided it wants Germantown recognized as the safest city in Tennessee. Brentwood, an affluent Nashville suburb, has the distinction now.
“What do we have to do to catch up and/or beat Brentwood?” asked former alderman Greg Marcom.
The answer is complex: Nashville scores a 42 on the FBI crime index. Memphis scores 80. Germantown shares a border with Memphis, Deputy Police Chief Rodney Bright noted.
“That is certainly a challenge we face, especially since Memphis recently ranked as the No. 2 most dangerous city,” he said.
His message to would-be criminals: “We’ll catch you here, follow you to your house, kick in your door, and we’re going to follow up.”
A more nuanced discussion involved reducing crime.
“Do we add cameras to parking lots to cut down on property crimes? Do we increase patrol cars in all neighborhoods? Do we up our police force? Can we afford to do that?” Marcom asked. “Those are the big questions.”
The last time Germantown developed a long-range plan in 2004, “citizens said they wanted more retail, more restaurant locations. They wanted the city to be more urban-like,” Marcom said. “That’s how SmartGrowth was put in place.”
City planners have since developed SmartGrowth codes, a series of regulations for new development meant to make the city more walkable and pedestrian-friendly.
Selberg has participated in long-range planning in Germantown since 1984.
“The amount of information available is higher now, and honestly, I think the expectations of the community are higher,” he said.