Visioning History and Background

Background and Creation

In early 2019, the City Council acknowledged the need to conduct a visioning process to capture and reflect the full breadth and depth of our community.  With the last visioning process occurring more than 10 years ago, the high number of new residents, and a range of community-defining choices present, the need to strategically look forward to the future increasingly became a high priority.  

As the elected representatives of Worthington residents, the City Council assumed the primary leadership role in the visioning process by developing a process architecture, selecting members of the Visioning Committee to directly execute and oversee the process, and actively engaging with the Committee and residents throughout the process.

COUNCIL EDITED copy

In June 2019, Worthington City Council appointed 13 Worthington residents to serve on the Community Visioning Committee and lead the comprehensive community-wide visioning process. The City Council received over 50 applications from citizens wishing to serve. See the committee appointments and job duties here.

Additionally, City Council selected Poggemeyer Design Group (PDG) as the visioning consultant to work with the Committee on this community-wide initiative. City Council received 10 applications and interviewed four finalists in the process. 

Visioning Process

City Council developed and directed a citizen-led visioning process, which began in 2019 with the goal of engaging and listening to at least 80% of Worthington’s population to develop a well-grounded articulation of the community’s aspirations for the future of Worthington. To achieve this, Council appointed the 13-member visioning committee that has spent the past several months listening to thousands of city residents, students, and members of the Worthington School District, local businesspersons, and community non-profit leaders who have all shared their thoughts and perspectives on what they value most about Worthington.

Pandemic conditions caused much of the public engagement to shift to online platforms, but it successfully continued and took many forms including presentations and meetings with a wide variety of active community groups, an online public survey that received over 1,000 responses, eight focus groups with 150 community members from diverse backgrounds, newsletters, postcards, and feedback forms that were mailed to over 6,000 Worthington households, and robust online input through more than 3,000 interactions on a dedicated website that was found at VisionWorthington.org.  

Vision Statements Wheel (2)
Focus Group

The feedback received made it clear that Worthington residents love their community and are attracted to the city for its schools, history, nature, arts, employment, recreation, services, and neighborhoods.  The committee has worked diligently to summarize everything that was heard into seven specific vision statements that are aspirational expressions of the community’s collective imagination of Worthington in the future:

  1. Worthington is a diverse and equitable community
  2. Worthington is dedicated to the vibrancy of its downtown
  3. Worthington is connected
  4. Worthington is a model for environmental stewardship
  5. Worthington offers a high quality of life
  6. Worthington’s economy is balanced and resilient
  7. Worthington’s leadership is open, forward-thinking, and collaborative

Visioning Committee Agendas and Meeting Minutes

Meeting minutes and agendas for the Vision Worthington Visioning Committee are archived and available for the public:
View Most Recent Item  /   List all documents 

Vision Worthington Consultant - Poggemeyer Design Group 

Founded in 1968, PDG is a multi-disciplinary firm specializing in municipal planning, economic and community development, grants, engineering, architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and surveying. PDG is an employee-owned company with offices in Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada. Their mission statement reads" "It is our goal to service each client at the highest level, delivering innovative design, technical superiority, and outstanding quality." 

Poggemeyer Design Group Proposal