The eight San Joaquin Valley Councils of Government (COG), working with the Great Valley Center, have embarked on a mission to prepare a Regional Blueprint Plan that addresses transportation, land use, housing, economic development, environmental and other local and regional issues that are important to the Valley.

Each COG is going through a local planning and outreach process. Results of the outreach will be used to create a Countywide Blueprint that will be the foundation for a San Joaquin Valley Regional Blueprint. There are several steps in the planning process: 1) Visioning 2) Options and Choices 3) Scenarios 4) Preferred Scenario. MCAG, along with Merced County Planning Department staff, conducted about 24 workshops in early 2007 throughout Merced County to solicit feedback on what the residents value and what their ideal vision is for our future.

Through these workshops MCAG was able to generate a draft Vision Working
Paper in April 2007, completing Merced County's visioning portion of
the plan. (See MCAG website to review Merced County's Vision Working Paper at http://www.sjvalleyblueprint.com/ )

Here is What's New with the Blueprint in Merced County: We are now beginning the next step, which is a public outreach to discover what options and choices the people that live in, work in, and love the valley prefer. The results of this outreach will be used as a guide to developing our future scenarios. In an effort to involve as many residents as possible, MCAG is contacting a list of over a hundred community groups and service organizations directly requesting their interest in the Blueprint Process. Once making contact with the groups or organizations, an offer is extended to give a 15-minute preview presentation of upcoming interactive workshops. The preview presentation will include several trivia questions about the current trends of the San Joaquin Valley. Also included in the presentation, will be dates and locations of future public workshops that will be more detailed and interactive. Workshops are currently being scheduled for October in Los Banos, Merced and North County.

If you know of, or are a member of a group that would be interested in having a presentation brought to your meeting, please contact Lori Flanders, Assistant Blueprint Planner, at lori.flanders@mcagov.org or 209.723.3153 x318
Forward this Email! Please feel free to forward this email to other interested parties.

If you received this email indirectly and want to be kept informed about the Blueprint Planning Process please send me an email and I will add you
to the list. Need to know more? If you have any questions, concerns or comments feel free to email or call Marjie Kirn, Blueprint Project Manager, at marjie.kirn@mcagov.org or 209-723-3153 ext. 306.