The West Florida Regional Planning Council, Apalachee Regional Planning Council, University of West Florida, Northwest Florida Forward, Northwest Florida League of Cities, and Florida’s Great Northwest invited elected officials and community stakeholders from Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Holmes, Washington, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jackson, Jefferson, Liberty, Leon, and Wakulla counties to an informational update and interactive planning workshop pertaining to regional priority identification and collaboration efforts. Sparked by questions about the Deepwater Horizon (BP) oil spill funds, or Triumph, WFRPC hosted a previous meeting with the City of Destin, who subsequently offered the use of their community center to facilitate a similar discussion on a regional scale. 
More than 100 attendees filled the Destin Community Center on May 17 as State Representative Mel Ponder opened the evening with special remarks. WFRPC Executive Director, Austin Mount and WFRPC RESTORE Coordinator, Bill Williams then provided an update on RESTORE and Triumph funds, and facilitated a discussion to identify infrastructure priorities throughout northwest Florida. Attendees engaged in discussion regarding a variety of regional infrastructure needs, identifying, via vote, their top three areas of focus: Transportation (254 votes), specifically major arterial routes (36 votes); Environment (192 votes), specifically stormwater (which ranked higher than any subcategory at 64 votes); and Quality of Place (116 votes), specifically underground utilities (34 votes) and wastewater (32 votes).
The partners will continue to host meetings to provide updates and identify trends and common goals, allowing a unified regional voice to foster leverage in future endeavors and potential funding opportunities. Please visit this webpage for updates.