Loveland, Colarado is a community of about 38,000 people nestled right where the plains meet the mountains: just 50 minutes north of Denver and 45 minutes from Rocky Mountain National Park. There is a large group of artists residing in town. Every August, Loveland hosts the largest sculpture show in the country. There is a new civic center complex including a recreation center, library and municipal buildings surrounding a beautiful lagoon.

There was concern, however, about what directions Loveland's citizens wanted to take in the future. A planning effort called Agenda for the 90's and Beyond was initiated to involve the community in some long-range planning for Loveland. The project was coordinated out of the City of Loveland Planning Office with Ed Moore, Chief Planner, acting as the project leader and Marge Schmatz as project coordinator.

From the beginning of the project, it was recognized that while the planning office acted as coordinator, the project would be citizen-based with citizens taking the lead and making the decisions. Consequently, the entire project designed by the Agenda for the 90's and Beyond Steering Committee has been completely open to any citizen wishing to participate.

The citizens' input is the basis for a Town Image Framework Plan: a hybrid long-range planning tool based on the works of Sir Raymond Unwin in 1902 and Kevin Lynch's Image of the City. While the plan is not a comprehensive plan or a policy plan as traditionally used by planners in long-range planning efforts, the Town Image Plan forms the physical planning core with Visions and Goals which support and augment it.

It was recognized very early in the process that young people were (and are) an integral part of the community. Although this seems obvious, it was felt that a special effort needed to be made to reach out to youth. Their concerns and interests needed to be heard and addressed. The first effort was to have a student on the Steering Committee. Once we had that, then a task force was formed from the Steering Committee to make other special efforts to involve students.

Through the efforts of the task force every high school in town (including the Alternative High School) was surveyed. A member of the Steering Committee spoke to the students about our project. We wanted them to understand the importance of their input to our efforts to plan what Loveland should be like in the future. We got survey responses from 244 students. The comments and suggestions were varied reflecting the students' many concerns.

Agenda members also went to four elementary schools in town. They spent about an hour with all of the third graders in each of the schools. (The third graders study Loveland, so it seemed appropriate to involve them.)

There were several activities to encourage students' participation. The first was a cognitve Loveland mapping exercise. Students spent eight minutes in complete silence drawing a map of Loveland. (The same exercise was also done with adults with very interesting results.) These maps showed what third graders noticed and remembered about their community. All of this was compiled to see what students found to be important.

Next, the students were divided into small groups to do collages. Each group was randomly given a piece of poster board to illustrate either "what they would want for Loveland" in the future or "what they would not want" for the future. The only rule was that everyone in the group had to agree before something could go on the poster board. (This idea came from the informed consent process we had used with the adults. With this process everyone had to be able to agree before moving on to the next topic or idea.) Each group then presented their posters to the class, and there was a discussion of their general hopes and fears for the future. These meetings was a discussion of their general hopes and fars for the future. These meetings with the elementary students appeared to be fun for the students. They provided additional input for writing the Visions and Goals.

An opportunity arose for the Agenda for the 90's to work with a 9th grade civics class through a project called Bridges. The Bridges Project matches classroom teachers with community members to plan special student activities. In this case, students were given an opportunity to choose what they wanted to do.

After much discussion of over 75 ideas, the students decided they wanted to do a student radio call-in show. (This was a great way for the Agenda project to learn more about what young people thought about issues.)

The local radio station agreed to support the students idea, and the students designed a weekly talk show for teens. The students selected the topics, contacted their guests, wrote and disbtributed the publicity, and hosted the show. The Agenda for the 90's and the school system acted as advisors and co-sponsors.

At first, the students were surprised that anyone cared or even wanted to hear what they thought. As one student said, "What we say doesn't matter anyway. Nobody wants to hear it." The Agenda for the 90's wanted to listen, and did listen.

Now, the students are very excited about the show. One of the students said recently, "You know, it is great to get the chance to really talk about things."

The Bridges Project has ended. The students are continuing with the show on their own. The radio station has been supportive. The kids have gotten to voice their opinions, and the Agenda has heard what students think.

This has been a great project for everyone! Through the Agenda for the 90's and Beyond Project, Loveland's citizens have begun to discover the tremendous number and quality of ideas in the community. Both students and adults can make major contributions when someone listens to what they have to say. This has been a fun and productive learning experience for everyone. And, the future plans for Loveland include an important perspective from our youth.

Margaret P. Schmatz is a facilitator for Agenda for the 90's and Beyond--Loveland, Colarado's Strategic Planning Project.