Community shares ideas for a Sustainable Zephyrhills and weighs in to help City set priorities.

In early February, the Zephyrhills community was invited to participate in the "Green Ideas for Zephyrhills" workshop. The workshop's purpose was to collect suggestions on ways individuals, businesses, institutions, and government could use our natural resources more efficiently, save money, and improve community quality of life.

Approximately 50 people attended the "Green Ideas" workshop and generated over 200 ideas on topics ranging from local food production to water conservation. The most popular ideas involved better facilities for safe, convenient walking and bicycling and making recycling in Zephyrhills easier.

The City's project team for the planning initiative used the community's ideas to draft a set of strategies, which were presented at a second community workshop on February 29. The "Green Actions for Zephyrhills" workshop was an opportunity for the participants to show which strategies they felt were most important. This prioritization (see note below) of strategies is helping the City develop an action plan-an important component of the Sustainable Zephyrhills Plan.

The intent of the Sustainable Zephyrhills Plan is to create a more energy-efficient community, conserve natural resources for future generations, and enhance the economic vitality and quality of life in Zephyrhills. The draft plan will be available for public review and comment in late March. City Council will consider approval of the draft plan in April.

For more information about the sustainability plan project and to learn about how you can participate, contact Todd VandeBerg at (813) 780-0006 or vandeberg@ci.zephyrhills.fl.us. Follow the project Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/greenideas4ZH.

Note: For prioritization, green dots indicated first priority, followed by yellow dots for second priority, and blue dots for third priority. Red dots indicated low priority to the rater.