Rockville Seeks Volunteers to Help Shape the City's Future

Rockville Seeks Volunteers to Help Shape the City's Future

ROCKVILLE, Md., May 21, 2012 - The City of Rockville is seeking community members - including residents and representatives of the business, nonprofit, government and education sectors - to help shape the future of the city by serving on one of six Rockville Summit working groups from June through October of this year.

Each working group will focus on one of the following six themes:

• job growth and residential workforce
• housing
• preservation of Rockville's character
• education and school capacity
• transportation and traffic
• City services and budget

The six working group themes emerged from the Rockville Summit: A Roadmap for the Future, which was held in October 2011 and brought together more than 200 members of Rockville's residential, business, government and nonprofit communities to engage in a dialogue about the city, the regional economy and Rockville's future.  

"We're talking about what the future of Rockville ought to be," stated Councilmember Mark Pierzchala.

On March 5, Rockville's Mayor and Council directed City staff to continue work on plans for a second summit to be held in the fall; it is tentatively planned for November 3, 2012. The Rockville Summit is intended to inform the development of a vision for Rockville to help guide policies and operations of the City, such as when revising its Comprehensive Master Plan. (The City's Comprehensive Master Plan guides where and in what form development occurs in the community and sets the framework for the City's capital improvement projects.)

"The first Summit was a great first start, a great first step," said Councilmember Bridget Donnell Newton. "Now we're talking about phase two and I think we need to have a larger conversation."

A kickoff meeting for the Rockville Summit working groups will be held on the evening of Tuesday, June 12. Each working group will then set its own meeting schedule to prepare by mid-October a summary of the group's findings and/or discussions. The product from each of the working groups will be presented at the second Summit in November.

For more information about the Rockville Summit or to register to serve on a working group, visit Rockville's website at www.rockvillemd.gov/summit. The deadline for working group registration is Friday, June 8, 2012.