Denver Borough Future Vision Summit Executive Summary

On Saturday, April 25, 2015, Denver Borough hosted a “Future Vision” Summit in which members of the community were invited to share their ideas for improving Denver. The premise was that ideas from this summit would be presented to Denver Borough Council to help guide their future decisions, and to identify items most important to the community.

Over 20 people attended this event. Among the attendees were representatives of local businesses and the school district, elected and appointed officials (both past and present) and members of the community. The attendees shared individual ideas for improving Denver. Similar ideas were grouped together and the ideas were ranked using a multi-vote process. The highest vote-getters were charted on a “Benefit vs. Effort” matrix. Lastly, the charted items were voted on a second time to set the overall priority.

The top priority items, grouped by their broad description, are as follows:

o Improve Downtown

o Attract/Retain Industry

o Develop Opportunities for Youth/Education

o Improve Residential Aesthetics

All of these are considered “High Benefit” items. They vary on the estimated amount of effort to accomplish them. Each of these is made up of many individual ideas that can vary greatly on their individual effort and benefit. Other charted items included:

o Improve Public Safety

o Secure Water Rights

o Increase Community Activities

o Address Nuisance Properties

o Improve Parks and Recreation facilities

Many individual ideas touched on things that Denver Borough, and groups within the Borough, are already doing, but with a desire to do more of them (e.g. Increase Community Activities). There were areas where past successes were discussed and ideas were presented to continue or improve upon these successes.

There were also a myriad of other great ideas that were not charted and ranked in the interest of time.  A presentation of the Summit’s results was given to Denver Borough Council on Monday, May 18, 2015.  A complete list of the ideas presented at the Future Vision Summit is available on the Borough’s website at www.denverboro.net.

The Borough is compiling a list of partners who are interested in volunteering to help implement these priorities.  If you would like to volunteer your time to work with other Borough residents and officials on a program, event, or process that will improve downtown or develop opportunities for youth in the community, please provide your contact information to Michael Hession, Borough Manager, via email at MHession@denverboro.net.  Denver Borough would like to thank the members of the community that donated their time and participated in this event.