Wagner Strategic Community Plan
Members of the Wagner community have been participated in the Study Circles and Leadership Plenty training provided through the Horizons II program, which was funded by the Northwest Area Foundation. This training focused on leadership development of members of our community. Those who participated learned how to express themselves in public, work in groups, deal with conflict, identify and refine community issues, and how to develop plans to take action. It helped identify the human capital of our community—the skills and interests of our citizens and their willingness to make Wagner a better place in which to live, raise families, and retire. New relationships also developed during the training. This new social capital created the energy to address some of the issues that are in our community. The plan that follows is first step in making Wagner safer, more attractive, and a more progressive community.
In order to provide community support of this community strategic plan, the Northwest Area Foundation requested that input be received from at least 15% of our community. The number for Wagner’s was 201. A total of 289 surveys were returned. The community members were informed of the surveys through a newspaper article, drop boxes were at First Dakota National Bank & Commercial State Bank, Rotary members, Triple F Supply, Wagner Good Samaritan Center, Wagner Community Memorial Hospital, the Visioning Committee, and Wagner Community School. Students and school staff returned 226. The results of these surveys will be shared with the school district staff and youth agencies of the community. Thirty blank surveys were delivered to Yankton Sioux Housing Authority, but none of those were returned.
A sample of 51 adult surveys was analyzed. The following are the top issues of that group:
1) Describe Wagner to a stranger:
FRIENDLY & CULTURALLY FRIENDLY; GREAT SCHOOL SYSTEM
2) What would make you more comfortable in our town?
MORE POLICE, LESS CRIME
3) What three things do you like best about Wagner?
FRIENDLY, WAGNER LAKE & OTHER PARKS, SCHOOL & SCHOOL OPPORTUNITIES IT PROVIDES.
4) What three things do you like least about Wagner?
UNKEMPT PROPERTY, VANDALISM & GRAFFITI
5) What are the three most important improvements Wagner needs in the next
five years?
INDUSTRY, ASSISTED LIVING, MUNICIPAL POWER, CLEAN UP MAIN STREET, CLEAN UP THE SALE BARN, STOP LIGHT ON HIGHWAY 50.
This information can be found in the Community Strategic Plan, 2007, for Wagner, SD. There is a great deal of other useful information that I will be posting as the weeks go on. Please read and share your comments with me!! Also, I would like to take pictures of items pertaining to our city and our future goals. Please keep me posted if you see such things.
Dawn Bures
November 21st, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Dave shared your strategic plan with us at one of our meetings. You have a lot of great goals for your town. I personally was able to see your Horizons group in action at the labor day parade for the clean-up. I’m sure the city workers as well as the local business owners were very impressed with the hard work that you did that day!
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Thanks for posting these results. As someone in the school system, the kids who took this survey were really provoked to do some talking after they completed the survey. I noticed some good things being said about our town and things that we can improve on. This shows me that the kids really care about where we live and take pride in our town!