OCCD 2020 Winter Meeting

As I write this, I am fully engaged in what can be described as the end of the year blitz!  I am totaling our Community Development accomplishments for the year, preparing for the Christmas and New Year’s season and awaiting the arrival of a new decade.

Consider launching your community development efforts by attending first Quarterly Meeting of 2020, which will be held on January 29 and 30, 2020 at the Crowne Plaza North (6500 Doubletree Avenue, Columbus, OH 43229).  This should be a great opportunity for us to expand our knowledge of community development through networking and informational sessions.

Wednesday will begin with an overview of the historic review process.  We are fortunate to have Diana Welling from the State Historic Preservation Office and Frank Quinn from Heritage Ohio to provide us with an overview of the process that must be followed to provide federal funds to a project.  Next, we will get an update on the OCCD Strategic Planning process.

Our lunch will primarily be for networking with the exception of our Young Professionals committee who will meet at that time so that they can interact with other committees later in the day.  We will follow that with a brief but important business meeting and get updates on state and federal legislation. After that, we will do a brief but hopefully informative session on research techniques – how to find answers to questions that come up when a project is being developed.  Please start accumulating your questions now and we will send out a request for topics in a few weeks. Our last session of the day will feature two organizations working to address those with substance abuse issues.  Brigid’s Path works with newborn babies and their mothers who have been impacted by addiction.  Stark Mental Health and Addiction Recovery has worked engage the public to prevent opiate use.  Our committees, with the exception of Young Professionals will meet to discuss activities of each group.  Our committees cover membership, sessions and training, state program recipients, legislative issues, finance, nominations for the Board and Officers and strategic planning. The day will conclude with a networking reception.

On Thursday morning, we will get an overview of the Complete Streets transportation policy and design approach.  Many communities in Ohio have adopted it.   Our next presentation will be from the local HUD office on the monitoring lessons learned in the last year.  The meeting will conclude with the Entitlement and Small Cities meetings.

I look forward to seeing you on January 29^th and 30^th.

Sincerely,