Blueprint Planners’ Toolkit to be discussed at next Valley Futures Forum

The next Valley Futures Forum will focus on the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint Planners’ Toolkit, an online resource developed specifically to address strategic planning for long-range growth of Valley cities and counties.  The Forum will be held on Thursday, October 18, 5 – 6:30 p.m. in Forum 102 on the East Campus of Modesto Junior College. The Forum is free and open to the public.

The Toolkit was developed several years ago as part of the implementation of the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint Planning Process. The Toolkit provides a comprehensive resource for Valley planners, community members, and decision-makers, and it includes tools to address planning challenges, and facilitate change by incorporating Blueprint principles and concepts into local plans, policies, ordinances, and processes. Used over time, the tools can promote patterns of growth and development that preserve open space and farmland, maintain resources for future generations, enhance distinct communities, and provide more travel choices.

The presenter will be Ted Holzem, Senior Project Manager with Mintier Harnish, who served as the principal design and content manager for the Planners’ Toolkit and is the current Toolkit administrator. Ted will provide guidance on how to use the Toolkit’s collective ideas, resources and planning tools and instigate change in community planning.

Ted has been a planner in both the public and private sectors since 2001. He specializes in land use planning, public policy, planning law, public outreach and meeting facilitation, and management of multi-disciplinary consulting teams. He has managed many types of planning projects, such as regional plans, general plans, specific plans, climate action plans, and municipal services reviews.

Ted has worked with a diverse array of clients, from rural agricultural counties and small rural communities to large urban cities. A native of Tulare County, he has focused on planning projects throughout the San Joaquin Valley for over a decade. Ted is also a specialist in climate change and sustainability policy, which he has addressed in planning documents and as a panelist at local, state, and national conferences.

You are invited to attend this informative presentation on October 18!