Franklin Tomorrow is a non-profit community organization that engages the community, foster collaboration, and advocates for a shared vision for the future of Franklin.
BREAKFAST WITH THE MAYORS
Vision Fair outcomes stress
open space, greenways, connectivity
Franklin Tomorrow released the outcomes of the 2011 Vision Fair process Jan. 31 as part of its first Breakfast With the Mayors for 2012.
Franklin Tomorrow completed a Vision process of more than a year in December. The process involved hundreds of individuals working in the nine goal areas which encompass Franklin Tomorrow's area of work — Business, Community Character, Education, Environment, Government, Growth & Development, Housing, Recreation, and Transportation.
The refocused goals and strategies to accomplish them were then taken to the public at various locations to seek their input on those which are most important to the future of Franklin.
"In an effort to reach as many people as possible, the Vision Fair went on the road, going to civic clubs, major public events, neighborhoods and office buildings to seek the input of Franklin’s citizens, which we define as those who live, work or play in Franklin." said Kathie Moore, Franklin Tomorrow Board president. "Each participant in the Vision Fair received five dots to choose the five strategies they believed to be most important to the future of Franklin."
Chosen by the approximately 1,000 people who participated in the Strategy Groups and Vision Fair as the top strategies were:
1. Recreation: Implement the Greenway and Open Space Master Plan and Streetscape
2. Environment: Encourage continued development of connected greenways for walking and bicycling
3. Business: Promoting a business-friendly environment
4. Transportation: Promote improved traffic signal timing, ridesharing, telecommuting, flexible work arrangements, and other transportation demand management programs
5. Housing: Support efforts to eliminate barriers to the development of affordable, workforce, senior, and special-needs housing
6. Growth & Development: Contextual design that embraces Franklin’s historic and natural characteristics
7. Education: Facilitate support for the further development of the Williamson County Center for Higher Education on the Columbia State Community College’s Franklin Campus
8. Community character: Enhance and preserve the physical character of existing neighborhoods
9. Government: Improve coordination between and among government entities, schools, private utilities and their respective staffs to discuss how to better facilitate the delivery of essential services and infrastructure
"As you can see, implementation of the city’s Greenways and Open Space Master Plan and the continuation of the Streetscape projects scored as the top strategy in two of nine categories." she said. "These same topics were addressed and finished in the top five in the categories of Business, Community Character, Growth & Development, and Transportation, showing the broad-based support by citizens for greater connectivity and alternate transportation modes."
Franklin Mayor Ken Moore and Williamson County Mayor Rogers Anderson had been briefed on the outcomes and made presentations on how local government views the results and will respond. The Breakfast With the Mayors will be rebroadcast on the city's FranklinTV channel.
Franklin Tomorrow is forming three project teams to further analyze the outcomes and continue to look for ways to make progress. The project teams will focus on Environment & Recreation; Business & Development; and Transportation. To become a member of a project team, contact Franklin Tomorrow Executive Director Mindy Tate.
"Through the work of the project teams in 2012, Franklin Tomorrow will work to further analyze the strategies for achieving the goals and seek ways to collaborate with other agencies and local governments to make progress," Moore said. "Franklin Tomorrow will also advocate for the strategies as part of its monitoring of local government and in an effort to force progress in key areas."
Additional sponsors for the Breakfast with the Mayors series for 2012 include Barge, Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon; Williamson County Association of Realtors; Windstream Communications; Chick-fil-A; and Ryan Search & Consulting.
The next Breakfast is set for April 17. To learn more about sponsorships, contact Franklin Tomorrow Executive Director Mindy Tate at 794-0998.
To learn more about the new goal and strategies, follow the links at the top of this page to the various Strategic Groups.
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BUSINESS
Williamson Herald: Jan. 31, 2012
New chamber selects a name, hires consultant;
three current chambers to hold joint meeting
The transition board guiding the unification of three chambers of commerce in Williamson County announced today three significant initiatives – the selection of a name for the new chamber, the hiring of a transition consultant and the scheduling of a joint meeting of the current chambers to answer member questions about the unification process.
The new name of the combined chamber, which is expected to launch at the end of 2012, is the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce. It will bring together the Williamson County-Franklin Chamber of Commerce, the Brentwood Cool Springs Chamber of Commerce and the Cool Springs Chamber of Commerce. The slogan for the new chamber is “One Williamson, One Chamber.”
The three chambers have scheduled a joint meeting on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 11:30 a.m. at the Franklin Marriott in Cool Springs, which will include a panel discussion on chamber unification. There will also be an opportunity for members to ask questions. Registration is available through any of the three chambers or their websites and non-members are welcome.
The consultant who has been hired, Charles Van Rysselberge, has served as president and CEO of the Charleston, South Carolina Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce. He has dual citizenship (American and Belgian) and is a South Carolina Consular Corps member, serving as the foreign trade advisor for the country of Belgium.
Van Rysselberge will help the transition board as it works through a variety of issues, including the hiring of a CEO, the dues structure, office location, fundraising and programming plans.
Having spent several days in the county recently working on the project, Van Rysselberge commented, “The leadership of Williamson County should be applauded for investing their volunteer time to create a unified Chamber for their county. This is something that has been discussed for a long time, and now the Boards of these local Chambers have decided to take action to make ‘One Williamson-One Chamber’ a reality. I am very excited to have been selected to be a consulting advisor through this process, and will draw upon my 40 years of Chamber of Commerce experience to assist them.”
Van Rysselberge is a graduate of the University of Georgia, with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in journalism/mass communication. His master’s thesis was on chamber communication programs in metropolitan U.S. cities. He also served in the U.S. Army as a Signal Corps officer. Van Rysselberge and his family live on Daniel Island, SC.
Transition Board Chairman Brad Dunn stated how much he appreciates the support and active participation of the three Chamber Presidents- Nancy Conway, Cindi Parmenter, and Shelly Robertson. “In this effort to unite into one mutual organization, it takes the strong and dedicated leadership of professional staff, board members, and the combined network of volunteer leadership throughout the community. In this case, representatives from all three groups have shown an incredible spirit of cooperation and support,” Dunn said.
About the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce
On July 27, 2011, the boards of directors for the three largest chambers of commerce in Williamson County, announced they had accepted the recommendations of a unification task force to work together to form a new countywide chamber of commerce.
This decision came after the unanimous recommendation of the joint task force, which had been studying the issue since December 2010. The new Williamson County Chamber of Commerce will provide the business community in Middle Tennessee and beyond a single path to engage, promote and connect with Williamson County.
Transition Board members are: Kenny Blackburn, Nancy Conway, David Flow, Cathy Holland, Rick Kloete, Matt Largen, Kristen McBryde, Cindi Parmenter, Jill Rosenberry, Mark Shore, Shelly Robertson, Angela Votta, Joe Budd, treasurer; Linda Hirsch, secretary; Chris Czarka, vice chairman; and Brad Dunn, chairman.
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Friends of Franklin Parks' president honored
as Darrell Waltrip Automotive
Hometown Hero of January 2012
Darrell Waltrip Automotive has continued to make headway with the Hometown Heroes campaign, awarding their 10th hero this January, with the award going to Dr. Monty McInturff of Tennessee Equine Hospital and president of the Board of Governors of Friends of Franklin Parks, LLC.
The award was presented Friday, Jan. 27, in a ceremony with Darrell Waltrip.
Darrell Waltrip (center left) congratulates Friends of Franklin Parks, LLC, President Dr. Monty McInturff (second from right) on being Darrell Waltrip Automotive Hometown Hero for January. On hand for the presentation Jan. 28 were (from left) Nancy Conway, president/CEO, Williamson County Franklin Chamber of Commerce; William Billington, Franklin Synergy Bank; Kathie Moore, president of Franklin Tomorrow, Inc.; Mindy Tate, executive director, Franklin Tomorrow & Friends of Franklin Parks; and Mike Binkley, a local attorney and friend of McInturff's.
McInturff is being awarded for his leadership role in the conservation of his community and for his selflessness while serving.
In April 2011, Franklin Tomorrow founded Friends of Franklin Parks, LLC, in which Dr. McInturff serves as the founding President of the Board of Governors. Friends of Franklin Parks was created for private donors to make tax-deductible contributions to fund improvements of area recreational facilities and preserve the cultural and natural resources for future generations. McInturff has been a practicing equine veterinarian in our community for over 20-plus years and is also the co-owner of Tennessee Equine Hospital. His passion is to promote and preserve our area parks by focusing on our history and our community.
Read more about McInturff by following this link.
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Columbia State Community College
claims its land for future campus
Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, was a day of celebration for officials with Columbia State Community College and many community leaders as they held a "pounding ceremony" to symbolize the realization of CSCC's longtime dream of a site for a new and modern college campus.
CSCC President Dr. Janet Smith went back to her rural roots with the pounding ceremony, saying she had done a little fencing in her life and the post pounded into the ground Friday represented the corner post of the college's future at the 36-acre site on Liberty Pike just east of Carothers Parkway.
To see photos or read more about this event, follow this link.
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Franklin Tomorrow forms partnership
with Sharing Spree which benefits all
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TRANSPORTATION
Commuter bus service to Nashville in peril
Additional bus runs to Nashville won’t start early this year, as some commuters had hoped, because the required $15,000 in local funding isn’t yet in place, according to an article in The Tennessean.
Staff Writer Jill Cecil Wiersma reports on the possibility that a lack of local funding may block expansion of the service and leaves an unclear future for the service provided through federal grant funding.
Read more from this article by following this link.
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The Tennessean. Jan. 25, 2012
Franklin aims for poor kids to mingle
By Julie Hubbard
Staff Writer
Some parents in Franklin’s poorest neighborhoods are preparing to send their children to different schools next year after district leaders voted to spread them out more evenly.
Changing housing patterns in the city mean the majority of students who receive free or reduced-price lunches — 40 percent of its 3,700 student enrollment — attend two of five elementary schools. Read more of this story by following this link.
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Download our Decade Report
Franklin will be a dynamic community that is influenced strongly by its rich history and natural assets. It will be a community recognized for carefully managed growth that is inspired by historic Franklin and active community involvement. The strong desire to foster small town character will manifest itself through the creation of interconnected traditional neigborhoods that mix land uses, provide a variety of housing choices, and help protect natural and cultural features.
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Learn more about Williamson County's non-profit organizations on a new Web site
Welcome to Franklin Tomorrow
Franklin Tomorrow is a non-profit civic and citizen participation initiative that began in early 2000 in response to concern by citizens, business leaders, preservation groups, and local government officials who wanted to maintain the charm, cultural history, landscape and unique attributes of Franklin in the face of tremendous growth and development. We are a community wide effort to create and implement a shared vision for the future of Franklin, Tennessee. We want Franklin to be the most livable historic small town in America. Franklin will be a dynamic community that is influenced strongly by its rich history and natural assets. It will be a community recognized for carefully managed growth that is inspired by historic Franklin and active community involvement. The strong desire to foster small town character will manifest itself through the creation of interconnected traditional neighborhoods that mix land use, provide a variety of housing choices, and help protect natural and cultural features. Franklin will be known for nurturing a diverse citizenry by providing first-rate education, a variety of employment opportunities, and wide-ranging neighborhood and houseing choices. We invite involvement from those who live, work and play here. Together we can continue to contribute to our wonderful community.