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Purcellville town ofcials create a vision together | LoudounTimes.com

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Purcellville town officials create a vision together

Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 by Laura Peters | 9 comments | Email this story

2 The Town of Purcellvilles first visioning meeting on Jan. 12 left some residents baffled at the lack of public input for the future plans for the town. What seemed like a team-building exercise for Purcellville Town Council, the Planning Commission and the Board of Architectural Review turned out to be more than four hours of discussing each other and finding a way to better work together. Our mission tonight is one, open it up for dialogue. Two, to capture some of those great ideas, Greg Wagner, Purcellville Town Council member said. One of the things I know all the groups want to do is to have a better chance at dialogue. I think well have a great opportunity throughout to hear a lot of different viewpoint, a lot of different voices. The introduced method is called appreciative inquiry, which is an approach to a positive transformation of an organizations effectiveness, according to town documents. The key points to the plan is to create a positive, strength-based approach to change; have a method of finding the best in people, teams and organizations; finding a way of co-creating inspiring plans of action; finding an approach to focusing on what the town wants more of; and making a strategy of finding and unleashing the positive elements that enable success. Town staff also presented the 5-I Cycle where the town will initiate, inquire, imagine, innovate and implement. According to town documents, the initiate stage is where leadership commits to using the approach to propel the organization forward. The next step, inquire, would be an extensive, cooperative search to understand the best of what is and what has been. The next stage, imagine, is an energizing exploration of what might be, according to documents. Next, the town would innovate or determine what should be, then implement it or create what will be. I thought it was a great meeting. It was an opportunity for the separate bodies to get together to talk about commonality of mission and purpose and how we work together, Purcellville Mayor Bob Lazaro said. I thought it was helpful in terms getting together to talk about these types of things. From my perspective any time when folks can get together like that and talk about things is a positive. We have some more work to do, at the end of the day we all agree that Purcellville is a great place to live and raise a family and that theres a lot of strengths starting with the folks that live there and the business community, he continued. We need to sit down a little bit more to go through these things. But I think at the end of the day we will come up with a good vision statement. Although a seemingly good workshop for town employees, about five residents showed up thinking there would be a public input session for them to voice their opinion. Kelli Grim, a resident of Purcellville, said she was not pleased at how the meeting was advertised and wouldnt have known about it if she hadnt attended a previous council meeting. I was glad to see that they were trying to seemingly do something to bring about working better together, but Im concerned that I dont see any public comment, Grim said. Theres no public questions, no input and theres no public citizens, just regular citizens that attend the meetings regularly that are interested in being a part of things. Theres no one talking to them about this visioning. But, according to Lazaro, there will be a time for public input when the town puts together
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their comprehensive plan in May or June. He said it would be a good opportunity for residents to give comment on the plan. He also said that the meeting had been advertised as a work session for the town. Mary Beth Barbagallo, who lives in Purcellville and owns a business in downtown, thought this would be a great opportunity to speak to the BAR about problems or concerns local businesses have.
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I had thought it was a public input session and I had some ideas for the Architectural Review Board for them, an opportunity to help out some of the businesses in town, Barbagallo said. But, its not a public input session. I think its just they had set up the criteria before we came here I thought there was going to be public input but I guess not. Former Purcellville Town Council member Susie Windham was hopeful that the workshop would help the town become more aware of what needed to be done in the coming years.

I found out there would be a visioning meeting and that is a captivating name for a meeting. I thought it was going to be about goals for the town, essentially, I didnt have the idea that it was going to be a team building, Windham said. I believe with this information they will be better volunteers and improve themselves and work better on behalf of the citizens. Lazaro said there will likely be another meeting of the three bodies on town issues, but that he said the first attempt was very positive. 2 Progressive Car Insurance Average Savings $475. Get a Quote & See What You Save w/ Progressive!
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Comments
Fri, Jan 20 at 10:20 PM by Mad Purcellville Resident | Report this comment

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PEOPLE OF PURCELLVILLE RISE UP! VOTE LAZARO OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!!!!!! HE IS A DONKEY HOLE!
Fri, Jan 20 at 06:00 AM by Jim | Report this comment Weekly Homes Guide 2011 Guide to Loudoun Holiday Gift Guide

If Lazaro is hated by a majority of the people, why does he keep getting elected? Are you implying voter fraud? Obviously those who think they are the majority are actually the minority and need to get over it and accept the will of the people.
Thu, Jan 19 at 05:27 PM by Purcellville Resident | Report this comment

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Yes, this is very typical of how the town works. They decide exactly what they are going to do and how they are going to do it. Then they open it up for Public Input. Those that support their plan are allow to talk (uninterupted for their maximum time) those that oppose their plan are interupted, told that was already considered and decided against, but NEVER listened to. Then the council and others wonder why there is such a low turn out for any of the meetings. The one thing they have taught the citizens of Purcellville is they are going to do whatever THEY want to do, they do NOT and WILL NOT worry about what the majority of the resisdents want.
Thu, Jan 19 at 05:03 PM by Purcellville Crooks | Report this comment

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Thats the Purcellville way, and why those crooks always go around in pairs so they can lie about what transpires at their intimidation sessions of citizens who dare speak against them.
Thu, Jan 19 at 04:54 PM by Mary Moorcones | Report this comment

I see nothing has changed (except more development) in Purcellville since I moved from there two years/seven months ago.