Community Planning Meeting Defines Needs
At a meeting Aug. 27, approximately 25 Glasscock County residents defined the top ten needs or issues of concern in the county as: lack of water, landowner water rights, fire department, rural health care, daycare, define community assets, housing development, job creation for youth, crop diversification (tie), awareness of funding sources (tie), and lack of jobs. Twenty-one other needs/concerns were also identified. (A complete list is available from the Extension office.)
Gene Theodori, Ph.D. conducted the meeting as part of the Texas Cooperative Extension Service's Community Based Comprehensive Planning Program, which is designed to "build, strengthen and support community and economic structures.” Theodori is an extension specialist for community development, and his program is being piloted in five communities that listed community and economic development as a priority issue in their Texas Community Futures Forum and Action Plan 2000-03, also sponsored by the Extension Service.
According to Extension Agent Steve Sturtz, the next step will be to meet again to form work groups and begin an action phase to address some of the items over the course of next year.