Saturday April 12, 2008
8 am - 11:30am
Manatee Community College
Lakewood Ranch
7131 Professional Parkway East
Sarasota, FL 34240

Every neighborhood has its own unique characteristics, those things that make it a special community where you can raise a family. While neighborhoods can differ in many ways including size, demographics, amenities, infrastructure, etc., the common denominator is that each contains residents who care about what goes on in their neighborhood. The Manasota Regional Neighborhoods Summit will show residents of vastly different neighborhoods how they can combine their resources, strengths and abilities to achieve a common goal; to make their neighborhood a better place to live.

Keynote Speaker:
Matt Leighninger is the Executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, an umbrella group that includes the major organizations in the field of deliberation and citizen involvement. Over the last twelve years, Matt has worked with Citizen Involvement efforts in over 100 communities, in 40 states and two Canadian provinces; roughly 25,000 people have taken part in those projects. Most of this work was supported by Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resources Center), of which he is a Senior Associate. Mr. Leighninger has also been a consultant to the National League of Cities, NeighborWorks America, Center for Disease Control, and the League of Women Voters. His first Book, The Next Form of Democracy; How Expert Rule is Giving Way to Shared Governance – and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same, was released in 2006 by Vanderbilt University Press.