Apalachee RPC to relaunch Appalachian Regional Resilience Collaborative; working group seeks county participants

Divina Laid, geospatial planning manager and resilience officer at the Apalachee Regional Planning Council, told the Wakulla County Board of County Commissioners that the Appalachian Regional Resilience Collaborative will relaunch this month with an in‑person and hybrid meeting and is seeking county representatives.

“The collaborative was established in 2020 through an MOU,” Laid said, describing three core roles: to help develop a regional resilience action plan, to provide a centralized forum for member counties and stakeholders, and to identify potential funding priorities.

Laid said the collaborative’s working group would ideally include county planners, emergency‑management directors, academic researchers, state agency representatives and community leaders. She estimated a time commitment of about two to four hours per month but said the schedule could flex depending on members’ availability. The relaunch meeting is scheduled at the Apalachee Regional Planning Council conference room in Tallahassee with a virtual option available.

Laid and her colleague Josh Adams, environmental planning manager, will lead the initial effort to formalize the working group and to coordinate funding opportunities across the nine‑county Appalachian region that includes Wakulla County. Commissioners were invited to send interested staff and to attend the relaunch.

No formal action was taken; the presentation was informational.