**RESCHEDULED** The City of Newberry Is Kicking off Its Long-Term Strategic Planning Process with Community Forums on June 26th

The City of Newberry is about to embark on an exciting process to collaborate with residents to develop a vision for our community's future - and a strategic plan to make that vision a reality. Community forums are the first step in this process. The City has already held a very successful virtual forum.

The city will host another forum in person to gather input and feedback from the community. The new date for this forum is:

• In-person on Saturday, June 26, from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm at the Easton Newberry Sports Complex (24880 NW 16 Ave, Newberry, FL 32669). Refreshments will be served.

These two forums will kick off the process and start conversations among residents about the future of Newberry. The discussion will focus on identifying those things about our community that residents treasure and wish to preserve, as well as the community’s hopes and aspirations for the future. The forum’s agenda will include a combination of small-group discussions and large-group workshop activities that aim to facilitate open conversation and the sharing of ideas. The project is expected to wrap up in the fall of 2021 with a formal document and presentation being delivered to the City of Newberry City Commission.

The city has engaged the Florida Institute of Government (FIOG) to facilitate this project and to write and present that final strategic plan to the Commission. While the project team from the FIOG includes additional staff, the facilitators for this forum will be Mari Rains and Karen Allen from the FIOG at the University of Central Florida.

Press, city staff, and elected officials are welcome to attend these events but will be encouraged to act largely as observers so that the process may progress without too much external input. As the interactive portion of the forum will begin around 9:00 am, this would be the best time for the press to get coverage of the event, if available.