By JOY MURPHY
The Ledger, 2/18/2000

WINTER HAVEN -- With sights fixed on the next 20 years, organizers of Winter Haven's "Our Future by Design -- A Greater Winter Haven Community," will meet Tuesday to finalize their plan on making the city a better place to live.

To help bring the plan to fruition, Cheryl Beckert and Dr. Frank J. Fischer have been chosen to lead the group's implementation committee.

"The implementation committee's job is to be the driving force," Beckert said. "Our job is to make sure the timelines are met."

Beckert and Fischer have been involved in the visioning project from the early stages, Bob Gernert, outreach chairman, said in a statement released Wednesday. Gernert is also executive director of the Winter Haven Area Chamber of Commerce.

The visioning committee held a series of meetings over an eight-month period in 1999 before coming up with the plan. The plan identifies six areas that will take on a new direction in coming years: economic development, education, lakes, community, health and growth.

Beckert, a State Farm Insurance agent in Winter Haven, said each member of the committee will most likely be assigned to a subcommittee where they will coordinate plans to make the vision a reality.

Beckert hopes to focus her efforts on community issues, such as helping to organize neighborhood associations, communications within communities and evaluating the area's recreation and cultural opportunities and facilities.

"The main focus is to make us a community that is more cohesive," she said. "Recognizing our differences and being able to celebrate and respect those differences will help make this a better community."

Fischer, an ophthalmologist, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Beckert said she and Fischer will lead the group for a few years until new leaders are chosen to take their place.

Visioning group "stakeholders," made up of more than 100 people from the Winter Haven area, will now review and begin finalizing a draft of the plan. The group will receive a draft of the plan during Tuesday's meeting at 6:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 637 Sixth St. N.W.