Hot Springs, SD Horizons

Brett Nachtigall, Star publisher and member of the Children & Youth ATF, blogs answers to two questions:

How has your community changed since joining Horizons?

Prior to Horizons, there were already a lot of people in the community who had a lot of good ideas to improve our community. Horizons however was able to bring those people and their ideas together, under one common goal.
Until Horizons was introduced to us in Hot Springs, the people and their ideas had little direction and it was difficult to draw the lines between everyone’s goals as they oftentimes seemed unrelated.
Now when I tell someone about a project that was generated from a Horizons discussion, people immediately recognize the bigger picture and that the project has the support of a large part of the community.
During the Horizons Study Circles, there was a lot of discussion about our youth and how we could help them. Our Children and Youth Task Force, which was created out of the Study Circles, brought all of the various ideas together. In addition, we also gained further input from the entire community though a survey of both children and their parents. Based on all of the input we accumulated, I’m confident we are heading in the right direction by working towards opening our very own Boys and Girls Club.
Without Horizons providing the catalyst for our efforts, I do not believe we would have been able to get all of the people and their ideas together, under one common goal, to make this happen.

Is your community more hopeful about the future? How do you know?

I do believe the community is more hopeful about the future. I can feel it in myself and can see it on the faces of my fellow Youth and Children Task Force members. With our current plans of opening a Boys and Girls Club in Hot Springs, there is a genuine feeling of excitement about what we are doing. We all have big dreams about what our work will create. But what is most exciting, is that we all believe that the dream will come true because we have the support of Horizons and the guidance of an internationally successful program like the Boys and Girls Club.

George Kotti responds to questions posed by a Horizons Program Coordinator:

1. How has your community changed since joining Horizons?

I believe that a door to a more positive dialog has been opened. Prior to Horizons the community was very segmented. As the Study Circles began, individuals from different segments of the community began to see that we all had similar concerns about our community and that we all could work together to address some of the major issues that we face. I believe that we have laid a foundation for working together in the future. The progress toward addressing youth concerns has been a very shining example of this cooperation.

2. Is your community more hopeful about the future? How do you know?

I think that the community is more hopeful about the future. Simply meeting together to create a strategic plan has caused many of us to hope that many of our community’s challenges can be met. One specific example has been the Chamber’s affordable housing project. When the program was first announced it was received with mixed reviews. I believe that the identification of a lack of housing by the Horizon’s Study Circles and the successful completion of the first home going to a young Hot Springs couple has increased interest in the program by identifying additional lots where homes can be built. Thanks to Horizon’s for their support.

George H. Kotti
Executive Director
Hot Springs Area Chamber of Commerce

Here is the Hot Springs Horizons Strategic Plan, which is final pending approval by the Visioning Committee. Upon approval the plan will be printed, and we will add the input of the Study Circles, Action Task Forces, survey respondents and others. We will announce a community event soon — to roll out the plan and recruit volunteers to work on teams to carry out individual objectives.

As you can see, the objectives are varied, ranging from children and youth projects, to tourism and economic development, to infrastructure, and more.Strategic Plan

I for one appreciate the positive comments appearing on this blogsite. Hot Springs has earned a reputation as a contentious community, but have we not learned how expensive this can be. Positive regard for each other’s contributions is healthier in every way, almost guaranteed to reduce property taxes! Truly we have much to appreciate, we are a unique community — blessed with a talented arts community, a powerful allied-health and complementary-health community, and a lot of smart creative people. We are blessed with location-location, as they say in Chamber circles, great climate, warm springs and a beautiful natural environment. We’re off the beaten track (off the Heartland Hwy, that is), but that is part of our charm. (Our amazing deer population is, for tourists anyway, part of our charm.) Working together we can all do better.

People will have an opportunity soon, to join teams to carry out Horizons strategic plan objectives. The unapproved final draft is elsewhere on this site, posted this date. Take a look to see where you want to plug in to help achieve a short-term or long-term objective. There is something for everyone in this plan.

I think it would be agood idea, with the advent of a new cable system being implemented in town, to provide a public access channel for civic events such as City Council meetings, HSHS sporting events etc.
This would also provide an opportunity for the high school to offer classes or extra curricular activities to students who could produce the shows thus learning the industry. It is my understanding the Custer has already implemented this.

I am beginning to see some changes in the community regarding the need to unify behind positive actions and get the issues that prevent us from moving forward behind us. A key thing that Horizons can do when they can point to successes is demonstrate that citizens with diverse views can,in fact, find common ground and really make things happen. Horizons needs to look at themselves as a group that can get people to work together in harmony to “make it happen”.

We have had Leadership Plenty sessions conducted in HS — two, I think — but, as yet, there is no real visible and tangible results that can be pointed out as a result. I hope the steering committee can identify a project that the group(s) can take on and bring to fruition. Some low hanging fruit that can be touted as an early success.

I think the Horizons Project has the potential for making significant changes in the community. I hear people saying that they are hopeful that the project will have some very tangible solutions to our city issues. New partnerships need to be built with community elected and business leaders to help spread the word and provide hopefulness that something good will, indeed, really happen as a result of the project.

We need to keep the Horizons Project on the front burner. We have seen some articles in the HS Star and these need to continue. Other suggestions are to keep key city organizations informed and enthused and help build support. These include the City Council, County Commissioners, Chamber of Commerce, and other civic organizations.

I am logging in as one of many, I hope, that sees the need for a professional city planner in Hot Springs. A full time planner, listing areas of improvements and the priority each alone demands would be helpful to those now working for the city in all the various offices/positions, along with us taxpaying citizens - who deserve to see what our dollars can do for this community. One sure can not run a progressive and successful household without a major plan, why should this growing city be without one? Beside, a well planned schedule of things to COME, promotes excitement amongst the people, gives hope, and the idea of refreshing continuous accomplishment, i.e. lay lines that are sound and trustable. Yes,as far as I’m concerned, a city planner is THE major missing player on our home town team.