Strategies - Quality of Life Foundation
Vision:
Paulding County will be a unified community with accessible and adequate
resources to meet the spiritual, physical, cultural and
health quality of life of all its citizens. |
A. Sense of Community and County Image
1. Create a sense of community through
innovative design concepts that creates unique neighborhoods around
a community center. Within neighborhoods, provide connections
between housing units, commercial spaces and the community center
through sidewalks, greenspace, and open space. The community center
could be a school, church, park, library, recreation facility,
branch post office, social service agency, commercial activity, fire
rescue and police substation, or combination of all of these.
Between neighborhoods provide connections through walking/bicycling
trails, greenspace, and open space. Connect the trails network
together with the Silver Comet Trail. This concept could be applied
to new development and over time retrofitted into existing
communities.
2. Improve the Paulding image by enforcing
consistent Planning and Zoning ordinances.
3. Develop a Paulding Daily Newspaper.
4. Provide a Performing Arts and Civic
Center.
5. Develop monthly events and festivals that provide a deeper
commitment to the Paulding community for its residents and that
attract visitors from outside the county.
6. Expand the use of the Government Access channel to convey
information about government, education and other activities, both
live and through frequent replays.
7. Increase the number of Paulding residents involved as
volunteers in organizations providing services.
8. Encourage government, education and other organizations to
provide frequent newsletters updating the Community of their
activities. These newsletters should be delivered by e-mail and
distributed in hard copy form as broadly as possible.
9. Attend governmental meetings and provide input.
10. Create a video library of community, government and
educational meetings.
B. Healthcare
1. Provide high quality, comprehensive
hospital services in Paulding County including child birthing
facilities, emergency room, life flight to Trauma Centers,
specialized services, and walk-in clinics.
2. Encourage WELLSTAR Health Systems to
escalate their plans from five years to two years for a new hospital
with a more visible and accessible location.
3. Improve mental health services.
C. Public Safety
1. Increase the delivery of fire department
services. Such an increase will probably pay for itself in reduced
fire insurance rates for homeowners and businesses.
2. Require mandatory driver training in
high school.
3. Provide high quality emergency medical services.
D. Social Services
1. Decrease child abuse. This could include
action steps such as educating the public about the positive cost
benefit ratio of prevention compared to treatment, more community
involvement, Paulding Government helping DFCS, and foster parent
recruitment.
2. Provide a facility for juvenile court to hold meetings,
seminars for juveniles, and provide alternatives to lock-up.
3. Provide Domestic Violence Shelters for families with children
up to age 18.
4. Build a homeless shelter for homeless Paulding residents and
their families and provide outreach services to help people get back
on their feet.
5. Provide community volunteers to help parents have frequent,
supervised visitations with children in DFCS custody. This could
include helping with transportation.
6. Decrease teenage pregnancy rate. This will include action
steps such as parenting classes for parents and teens, for the
promotion of abstinence of sex before marriage, sex education for
both male and females, emphasis on the responsibility of both sexes,
recognition by parents who commute out of the community that the
time between 3:00 and 7:00 PM is the time of greatest risk for young
people. Provide shared housing for teen pregnant mothers-to-be who
have no other alternative living arrangements.
E. Youth Development
1. Strengthen and empower families in
Paulding County as a top priority. Provide training opportunities
for comprehensive problem identification and solutions for the whole
family, including education, youth development, responsibility,
accountability, understanding the consequences of decisions, and the
connection between a decision today and the long-term future.
2. Increase the number of service providing institutions such as
YMCA, YWCA, Boys Club and Girls Club. Provide education and
activities that will result in a decrease in drug use by young
people.
3. Provide a program to teach teen parents parenting skills.
F. Recreation/Entertainment
Develop and implement a master plan for recreation with public input
that will set standards of service for types of recreation such as
tennis, swimming, baseball, soccer, basketball, football, bicycling and
skateboarding that is acceptable to Paulding county residents. Identify
the gaps between availability of each type of recreation and the desired
level of service. Eliminate the gaps over a ten year period and provide
services as required by growth. Where possible, locate recreational
opportunities in neighborhood community centers. Ensure that operational
expenses are budgeted to make the recreational activities affordable for
families. (See III A.1.
Infrastructure Strategy)
G. Faith Based Organizations
Encourage Faith Based Organizations to be involved in the implementation
of strategies that involve their unique strengths.
H. Race Relations
1. Provide diversity training for Public Safety workers including
the ability to deal with different languages and cultures.
2. Encourage local governments to abide by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Law.
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