Sisters Country Horizons ‘Vision Action Plan’ released

Sisters Country Horizons has published the draft of its Vision Action Plan on the community initiative’s website and is accepting public comments on the document through the end of December.

The draft Vision Action Plan can be found at www.sistershorizons.org.

The Horizons project’s Vision Action Team — 32 citizens representing a broad cross section of Sisters Country — developed the community based plan. It includes 20 strategies, along with numerous actions, all meant to help Sisters Country move in the direction of the community’s long-term vision and to improve residents’ quality of life.

Each of the actions is intended to be championed by one or more lead partners from the public, private and nonprofit sectors.

The Vision Action Plan is designed to be a “living plan” and a guide to future action by the lead partners who sign on to help implement it. Some actions in the plan may take up to five years or more to fully implement, and not every action called out in the plan may ultimately be achieved.

To determine the community’s long-range vision and to analyze what residents value about the community, Sisters Country Horizons engaged in an extensive community conversation in 2018 that included surveys, stakeholder interviews, public meetings and forums. Close to 2,000 participants contributed thousands of individual comments and ideas.

The draft plan was presented to the Sisters City Council on Nov. 28. The City Council is slated to take up a final draft on Jan. 9, with adoption anticipated on Feb. 13.

Sisters Country Horizons is sponsored by the city, Deschutes County and the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council. The City of Sisters, which will be the lead on a number of action items, will be approaching other potential partners seeking their help in implementing the plan.

In addition to Deschutes County and the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council, those partners are expected to include the Sisters Ranger District/U.S. Forest Service, Sisters School District, Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District, Sisters Park & Recreation District, Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO), Sisters Chamber of Commerce, Sisters Arts Association, Citizens4Community, and others.

Sisters Country is defined as that part of Deschutes County served by the Sisters School District 006, including the City of Sisters, surrounding smaller unincorporated communities and residential areas, ranches and farms, as well Camp Sherman.

Sisters Country Horizons was launched in January 2018. The last visioning and planning effort in Sisters was completed in 2007.