December 05, 2004
Next Year's Council Open To 'Conversations' Session
Update On Our Little Pet Proposal
Any number of proposals and reforms regarding public involvement can be expected to be taken up when the new City Council convenes next year. Over the course of the Mayoral and Commissioner campaigns, pitches were made for Council meetings held in neighborhoods, possible recreation of bureau advisory committtees, citizen representation on the budget committee, support for the work of the Public Involvement Task Force, and several other ideas.
As we recently briefly mentioned (it's towards the bottom of the item), all of that made us recall our own pet proposal to institute a Conversations with Council session.
Currently, people can sign up for a slot in what's called the Communications portion of any given Council agenda, which gives three minutes per person for up to five people to address the Council on any non-agenda topic of their choice.
Under our Conversations with Council proposal (in its most generalized form) time would be set aside for a Communications-like process but with more time allotted to each person, which would allow for Council members to engage in actual discussion about the topics being addressed.
Back in March, as reported in the above-linked item, we asked the current members of City Council for their reaction to this idea. Here's some of what the three current members who will be returning next year had to say.
"I would support trying it for a while to see how it works," Commissioner Randy Leonard responded back in March. "There are definitely times when I would like to respond to erroneous assumptions or comments."
"I've never really had a hard time getting into dialogue with citizens," said Commissioner Erik Sten at the time of our original inquiry. "That being said, why not try it."
And word out of the office of Commissioner Dan Saltzman was that "the idea is interesting to him, but he wants more details."
All that remains, then, is to find out what the incoming members of Council -- Mayor-Elect Tom Potter and Commissioner-Elect Sam Adams -- think of the idea. As of this evening, we have the responses from both of them.
"I like the idea," said Adams, simply enough.
At the same time, Adams indicated that he would move to place the existing Communications portion of the agenda to the first fifteen minutes of the session, prior to the Consent Agenda. "It is unacceptable," he said, "that we make people wait who have signed up to testify." You might notice, however, that the above link to the Council Clerk section of the City's website explains that this already is precisely when the Communications occur.
To be fair, when we first got into this Communications versus Conversations issue, the Clerk told us that it was only just in 2003 that the Council moved Communications from the end of the agenda to the start. Nonetheless, and not to keep harping on this particular term, but that would seem like a bit of trivia a wonk would know.
But getting back to the matter at hand, this was the word from the Potter camp several days ago: "Tom likes the idea you propose and wants to discuss it with City Council, with whom he meets mid-December."
So it seems possible that our little pet proposal may make its way onto the Council's agenda at some point. Of course, there is still the need to work out the detailed manner in which such a Conversations with Council process would function.
Back in March the other point Commissioner Leonard made to us was this: "Your suggestion has the real potential to turn into a bizarre exchange if there were not some tight rules implemented on how a more free flowing exchange were conducted."
We have our own thoughts as to how such a Conversations session could be constructed, and under what sorts of rules it should operate. But before we pitch our own ideas, interested readers are expressly invited to chime in using the reader comments.
Comments (8)
allehseya on 07 Dec 2004
Where do the Public Involvement Task Force recommendations stand these days? I recall b!X telling me that they werent ready for City Council review?
Regarding opening up dialogue or conversations with the public -- I dont see why more councilmen arent doing what Commissioner Leonard is doing here and at the Blue Oregon site (regarding the JTTF etc) --- in fact -- under Tom Potter I'd think such a model would work rather well. Post the budget -- post the agenda items -- post everything -- provide minutes to meetings and allow for comments!
The One True b!X on 07 Dec 2004
If I correctly recall what I was told, the work of the Public Involvement Task Force was put in something of a holding pattern while the Guidelines Review, Empowerment, and Assessment Task Force completed its work first.
And since there's still public comment going on for the GREAT product (until December 10), safe to say the PITF stuff won't be coming up for consideration in the short-term future.
The One True b!X on 07 Dec 2004
One thing I've been rather impatient for, since we're on the subject of accessible information, is the online posting of the material for each week's Council agenda. Most of it tends to be available as pdfs anyway, so hopefully in the next year they'll just start posting them all online to begin with.
I seem to recall this being, as it were, on the agenda for the Clerk's office, but maybe I'm imagining that.
allehseya on 07 Dec 2004
I hope it's not wishful thinking on your part. The main critique of Tom Potter's campaign platform for involving the community was in specifying an approach.
I'm actually quite serious about a fully interactive website / blog model for community involvement / discourse on public policy within the city structure.
I mean -- if we are just *imagining* things -- then why not the council agenda with topics, related links to articles, proposals, etc. and a comments field for citizen input on the topics / issues / proposals? Talk about a user-friendly testimonail system!
If they dont do it, maybe we should .. which brings up another issue . . . (a riddle for you to answer, b!X -- have you visited the 'lily' pad lately?)
Gary Blackmer on 07 Dec 2004
Mr. b!X,
We are working to get more links in our agenda to digital documents in advance of Council meetings, but first we are trying to put the finishing touches on our electronic archives system, E-files. That will reduce the required work steps because we have a very tight timeline: all agenda items in by Thursday 5pm and the agenda and materials available Friday afternoon for Wednesday morning Council.
We are eager to insert those links but we're a little ahead of the machinery right now. The idea of an agenda blog hadn't occurred to us. I'll put it on our IT wishlist!
allehseya on 08 Dec 2004
Hoorah!
If you need help with the program / technology resources -- I could connect you to a non profit organization that works in Linux open source environment that would loooooooooooooooove to develop the protoype !!! (I think our new mayor would love to hear the ideas we discuss at the local coffee shop for such a site!) Imagine the prototype to be a collaborative effort from the open source community!! (and Linus T. founder of Linux is nearby enough to pull in off consultation!)
allehseya on 08 Dec 2004
disclaimer: typo
(and Linus T. founder of Linux is nearby enough to pull in *for* consultation!)
allehseya on 15 Dec 2004
re: PC, Mac or Linux?
If Sam Adams is starting his own blog while Eric Sten and Randy Leonard already utilize blogging as a virtual community forum for input on issues -- then I think this is more than a wish on anyone's list.
Of course -- if it's true that Commissioner Leonard is going to co-host a talk radio show (someone PLEASE confirm this), then maybe there would be a conflict of interest in relying on the (local) collaborative Open Source community of programmers and artists (Linus included) for developing the City prototype --- seeing as how the owner of the radio station that Randy Leonard would be aired on is non other than *the* (x-microsoft) Paul Allen...