The mission of the Citizen Network is to create a broad-based, non-partisan, diverse grassroots citizens organization, drawing together persons from every town in the Capital Region to address collaboratively regional issues, problems, challenges, and opportunities.  We believe that citizens can work together to articulate common values and promote a positive vision for growth and development for all the residents of the region.  Significant issues of importance to the Capital Region continue to be raised as a result of the ever changing growth in town populations, public education requirements, reliance on local property taxes to fund municipal budgets, and economic challenges brought on by both domestic events and competition resulting from the growth of the world economy.

The Citizens Network has been designated to serve as lead agency and catalyst for the Capital Region Partnership to launch “COMPASS” a MetroHartford Region project to enable citizens of the region to weigh in on where we stand in quality of life satisfaction and to guide us in new directions to improve our quality of life. www.compassmetrohartford.org.

The Capital Region Partnership is a coalition of regional non-profit organizations working on a broad spectrum of issues in the MetroHartford Region. Members include: Capital Workforce Partners, Capitol Region Council of Governments, Capitol Region Education Council, Citizens Network of the Capital Region, Inc., Greater Hartford Arts Council, Greater Hartford Transit District, Hartford Consortium for Higher Education, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Hartford Public Library, Metropolitan District Commission, MetroHartford Alliance, United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, and Urban League of Greater Hartford.

COMPASS will provide a means of tracking measurements significant to the quality of life in the MetroHartford Region. Breaking these measurements (or indicators) into three main areas - “People, Prosperity and Place” - will allow you to make suggestions/engage in dialogue with others about how to improve the quality of life in the region. www.compassmetrohartford.org.

• People – We need people equipped for success. Residents who are skilled, economically self-sufficient and effective competitors in the knowledge economy.
• Prosperity – We need steady economic growth, and broadly shared prosperity. An expanding regional economy with more residents participating successfully in that growth.
• Place – We need to keep our current workers here and attract talented newcomers to meet the demands of a changing workplace. The MetroHartford Region must be a desirable location of choice for residents to live, work and play.

Once we hear from you and learn more, listening to and participating in the on-line discussion, uncovering new (and old) ideas, discerning trends for these statistical indicators we can, together, plot a course and take action to enhance the future well-being of the MetroHartford Region.

Check out the COMPASS website at: www.compassmetrohartford.org and JOIN THE CONVERSATION!

What makes
the Citizens Network different

The Network is a region-wide grassroots citizens organization focusing on regional concerns.

• The Network is a non-partisan, region-wide grassroots citizens organization focusing on regional concerns: we are citizen-based, our focus is to identify and address quality of life issues confronting the Capital region.
• We solicit the opinions of residents to identify issues that need to be addressed.
• We invite citizens to form study committees to study and report on selected issues.
• We follow up the work of the study committees by convening community conversations across the region to raise awareness of the issues and involve citizens in the conversations and debate required to find solutions.
• We work collaboratively with business and local elected officials in the search for solutions.