SNELLVILLE – The city hosted a unique and highly successful Atlanta Regional Commission Civic Dinner Saturday. The ARC, in conjunction with its International Advisory Panel, has been sponsoring dinners throughout the region since the spring of this year. To date, each dinner has been relatively small with six to eight people in attendance.
The planning committee for Saturday's dinner, which included Snellville Councilman Dave Emanuel, took a different approach by expanding the number of people attending. In what has potentially become a prototype for future events, the Snellville dinner included more than two dozen attendees.
Each ARC civic dinner focuses on a specific topic, including livability, mobility, prosperity, beloved community and "Our Future Atlanta." At the Snellville dinner, catered by Fratelli's Italian restaurant, the discussion was about prosperity. Each attendee discussed his or her interpretation of prosperity's meaning and the ways in which the ARC can help the region maintain prosperity and expand opportunities for people who are struggling.
"The purpose of ARC's International Advisory Panel is to involve a broad cross-section of the region's international community to provide feedback on key regional topics and issues of interest," Emanuel said. "In planning this dinner, we thought the conversation would be more productive if we had 20-to-30 people expressing their views and listening to the views points of others. It was rewarding to see a diverse group from virtually every part of the region, exchanging ideas. I think the ARC will receive excellent feedback, which will be extremely helpful in future planning."
ARC's Civic Dinners will continue through December. Information about attending or hosting a dinner can be found at www.civicdinners.com.