Panel presentation at Impact 2008. From left: Moderator Bev Seiford, Roger Fraser, Bob Guenzel, Bill Miller, Todd Roberts and John Petz.

Collaboration – the benefits and the challenges – took center stage on Wednesday at Impact 2008, a gathering of community leaders and others hoping to shape Washtenaw County’s future.

The half-day event looked at two areas – local government and schools – and after an overview session, the 200 or so participants split into breakout groups focused on those topics. The Chronicle, noting that Ann Arbor News reporter Liz Cobbs was covering the schools session, veered into the breakout group on local government, led by Ann Arbor City Administrator Roger Fraser and Washtenaw County Administrator Bob Guenzel.

Fraser, Guenzel and others working for the city and county highlighted the many ways their organizations are already collaborating. Those include the completed merger of the Office of Community Development; working to consolidate dispatch services for Ann Arbor, the county, and Huron Valley Ambulance; and moving toward a shared data center and joint info tech strategic plan.

One of the challenges, they said, was to convince citizens that collaboration is important, and to engage them in the process. “We need to develop grassroots support,” Guenzel said. “We need the business community as well as the entire community to take the time to be interested.”

Sharon McRill, Kristie Martin and Rebecca Lopez Kriss talk during a break at Wednesday's Impact 2008 event, held at Kensington Court and organized by the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce.

During the post-lunch wrap-up session, Ann Arbor Public Schools Superintendent Todd Roberts said the concept of a Washtenaw Promise – modeled on the Kalamazoo Promise, which guarantees its county’s high school graduates a college education, if they want one – generated the most enthusiasm from that group.

Throughout the day, audience participants asked how they could get involved, and wondered whether anything concrete would emerge from this meeting. Government and school leaders, on the other hand, felt that getting people to participate was a challenge.

Roberts urged people to attend community meetings when they’re held, or volunteer for things like Skyline High’s magnet programs. Fraser said there are several ways to get information or give feedback to the city. In one new approach, the city is working on a system that would let residents subscribe to an email alert by subject – the project is in a pilot stage, and is expected to be ready by year’s end.

But no matter what the city does, Fraser added, “you have to care. It’s not possible for us to stimulate your interest in everything that’s going on.”