People in the community and decision makers need to know about the plan and understand the reasoning behind its objectives. Community members, after all, are critical to the plan working correctly. Legitimacy for the plan should already have been gained by having appropriate citizen participation during the planning process. The second half comes after the plan has been written. This is education.

Education about the plan can come in many forms. As plans are discussed in public meetings, citizens who participated in the process could do a portion of the speaking. Using a citizens’ advisory committee to design the community education phase is a good idea.

Finally, periodic meetings should be held to update the community on how the plan is working. This will help create a larger constituency for planning in the community, and may draw more citizen participation in the next round of planning.