Goals and Strategies

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Strategies

• Strategy 1: Increase capacity of “diversion” programs across all jurisdictions in Chatham County for first-time offenders to reduce caseload, providing case management, restorative justice programs, and wrap-around services via community partners.
• Strategy 2: Provide continuous evaluation on enhanced training and screenings for First Responders in all jurisdictions specific to trauma responsiveness, cultural sensitivity, confidentiality, and behavioral health, as well as ensuring these processes/procedures are made transparent to the community.
• Strategy 3: Expand, market and engage community-based organizations with police actively through citizen engagement programming. Develop opportunities for law enforcement and families/children to interact peacefully at community events.
• Strategy 4: Reduce access to guns, by re-instituting waiting periods for purchase, limited local gun shows, explore gun buy-back programs.
• Strategy 5: Implement Project Step Forward (taking guns off the streets, breaking up gangs and groups).
• Strategy 6: Explore and develop criteria and implement recognition and award programs to further incentivize law enforcement who complete additional training towards best practices including categories such as de-escalation, implicit bias, trauma responsiveness, and other emerging fields. 
• Strategy 7: Develop domestic violence case worker teams so that social workers respond to domestic violence calls with law enforcement.
• Strategy 8: Increase capacity to improve re-entry programs including expungement, housing, employment, behavioral health services, and connection to additional wrap-around services.
• Strategy 9: Explore and expand victim, witness, and whistleblower programs to meet evidence-based practices ensuring information is confidential and those who report information feel safe. 
• Strategy 10: Hold continuous community education and feedback sessions regarding the ongoing process of enhanced training and screenings for First Responders, where community members are able to be forthcoming about whether or not these trainings and screenings are effective.
• Strategy 11: Assess external and internal public safety policies with community input that can be created, reviewed, changed, and/or removed at the local level to ensure policies are implemented through an equitable lens.
• Strategy 12: Implement a pre-trial release texting service to ensure a return to court to end unnecessary stays in jail.
• Strategy 13: Audit the internal culture within law enforcement/emergency management agencies for best policies and incentivize first responders into complying with those policies.

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Strategies

• Strategy 1:  Adopt or update ordinances and plans countywide, to include “Complete Streets” and “NewZO” to meet national standards, giving all people safe, comfortable, convenient and equitable access to community destinations and public places–whether walking, driving, bicycling, moving actively with assistive devices, or taking public transportation.    
• Strategy 2: Work with Chatham Area Transit, Municipalities, community organizations, and neighborhood associations to develop new routing plans that equitably and efficiently expand transit opportunities across Chatham County.
• Strategy 3: Provide public/private incentives to encourage an array of transit opportunities to include car pool, park and ride sites, public transit, and cycling for Chatham County residents who do not have access to personal motor vehicle transportation.  
• Strategy 4: Evaluate current parks and recreation facilities, aligning efforts with the Chatham County Master Recreation Plan to provide high need communities with equitable, more efficient, safe, and well-maintained access.
• Strategy 5: Explore alternate routes for heavy equipment, trucks, and those carrying hazardous material county wide.
• Strategy 6: Complete the primary loop (30 miles) of the Tide to Town Urban Trail System, including Truman Linear Park Trail and Springfield Canal Path/Heritage Trail, and expand the Tide to Town system plan to include county wide connectivity via implementation of the Chatham County Greenway Plan. 
• Strategy 7:  Increase driver education regarding non-motorized transportation users, including people biking and walking. Provide consistent bicycle and pedestrian safety education. 
• Strategy 8: Address the “digital divide” by making the necessary investments in broadband infrastructure so that service reliability meets or exceeds National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTA) upload and download speeds. 
• Strategy 9: Increase availability of public use computers including the use of assistive and accessible technology.
• Strategy 10: Strengthen ordinance regarding planting and replacement of trees; work to increase green space countywide.
• Strategy 11: Support blight remediation by creating a revolving fund supported by all municipalities and private funds.
• Strategy 12: Provide or allocate funding to support the creation of places to bike or walk for people of all ages and abilities.  
• Strategy 13: Establish goals, metrics, and benchmarks for equitable access to places to bike, walk, use public transportation and access greenspace.

• Strategy 14: Support the City of Savannah’s 100% Savannah Resolution, an initiative to transition to safe, clean, renewable energy, and to increase economic opportunity, improve community health and well-being, and protect our natural environment. 

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Strategies

• Strategy 1:Provide additional resources for residents with a behavioral health disorder through a continuum of care facility rather than jail.
• Strategy 2: Consider the development of new and existing community-based facilities for use of multi-agency resource centers to include behavioral health, wellness, adolescent development, learning center, computers, and senior activities.
• Strategy 3: Develop a community information exchange between mental health, healthcare, public safety, and social services for clear collaboration.
• Strategy 4: Create and maintain community centers in low wealth and underserved districts with expanded operating hours, diverse services, and resources.
• Strategy 5: Host an annual meeting of local funders and community residents to review community needs and outcomes.
• Strategy 6: Create a community resource and common platform for funders, to ensure accessibility for organizations. 
• Strategy 7: Establish working relationships between planning departments of neighboring jurisdictions to ensure alignment on long term projects and goals.

 

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Strategies

• Strategy 1: Create clearer processes of the use of SLPOST funding regarding neighborhood improvements, infrastructure, parks, and community centers.
• Strategy 2:  Conduct a county-wide review of current policies and ordinances to consolidate and update where applicable.
• Strategy 3: Consider consolidation of local government.
• Strategy 4: Convene representatives of neighborhood and homeowner associations county-wide semi-annually, and provide consistent feedback on projects.
• Strategy 5: Explore innovative methods of marketing and communicating with residents; implement use of smartphone notification methods that are neighborhood and community specific.
• Strategy 6: Establish a transparent and publicly accessible asset replacement schedule for local public entities.

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Strategies

• Strategy 1: Develop a long-range regional plan for sea level rise that evaluates multiple adaptation methods for potable water source protection and conservation; and also evaluates multiple adaptation and mitigation methods with short, medium, and long-term goals for implementation.
• Strategy 2: Prevent damage to existing development and infrastructure from the impacts of sea level rise, consider sea level rise in future infrastructure investments, and site development only in areas where new growth is appropriate.
• Strategy 3: Implement more stringent development standards to conserve undeveloped land and preserve open space areas, especially sensitive natural areas.
• Strategy 4: Identify strategies to fund historic, cultural, and land conservation efforts that include the restoration and development of a plan to repurpose publicly owned natural areas and open spaces to provide permanently protected habitat areas and public recreational spaces for each jurisdiction in Chatham County.
• Strategy 5: Incorporate climate change and socioeconomic resilience into the everyday review, design, and planning process including, but not limited to natural resources protection, air quality, potable water, wastewater, stormwater, comprehensive planning, transportation, and emergency management.
• Strategy 6: Develop and implement growth management policies to guide new development away from current or future high–risk areas. Instead maximize infill and the use of existing infrastructure, brownfields, and buildings while minimizing the costly conversion of undeveloped land at the border of a community.
• Strategy 7: Develop and implement urban forest management plans inclusive of a tree survey and supplemental policies and procedures to improve tree preservation and replanting after a natural disaster and during development.
• Strategy 8: Implement a clean energy plan that includes: clean transportation, policies to reduce carbon footprints and promote less energy-intensive industries, cleaner fuels, clean energy technologies, and increase considerations of renewable energy sources (ex. solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal heat, and biomass).
• Strategy 9: Ensure that existing policies, plans, and regulations align with Smart Growth practices, energy efficiency, and plans for greenhouse gas emissions so that communities and their residents are more resilient (ex. extreme heat, drought, etc.).
• Strategy 10: Evaluate and upgrade stormwater systems and manage stormwater runoff on a regional basis while planning infrastructure to accommodate for sea level rise projections, changes in land use patterns and increased coastal populations.
• Strategy 11: Ensure that existing policies, plans, and regulations ensure socio-resilience for Chatham County’s communities and residents