This past year has been a very
important one for our community and for Vision 2020. Vision 2020 has
agreed to join with other community organizations to form the new
Lafayette - West Lafayette Development Corporation. The other
partners in the LWLDC are the Chamber of Commerce, Economic
Development Corporation, Community Development Corporation, Downtown
Business Center, and Lafayette Urban Enterprise Association. The
goal for this restructuring is to become more efficient and
effective in both economic and community development.
We know that we live in a special
place where our community, county, and educational institutions work
extremely well together. Vision 2020 has been the face of processes
by which residents have had the opportunity to help plan our future,
providing aid and support to elected officials and other leaders.
Since the first twenty-year plan was
published as a result of initial stakeholder meetings in 2000, the
Vision 2020 Implementation Steering Committee has kept it up-to-date
with regular community meetings of the ISC and its subcommittees. We
have also been the initiating organization of many new projects that
serve the plan, including what has now become the Wabash River
Enhancement Corporation, cooperative ventures among our schools, and
a continuing focus on creating changes that lead to greater
appreciation for our community’s diversity.
We expect both our brainstorming and
consensus-reaching processes to continue, and our role of convener
and incubator of initiatives developed under the plan, to continue
with the new LWLDC, though in a different form.
It has been a pleasure and a privilege
to be involved over the past several years in an effort that has
been recognized and praised both statewide and nationally. We look
forward to the continued and new opportunities to move our community
forward.
- John Corey
