July 07, 2005
On The City Club Of Portland's 'Community Scan'
Tell Them What You Think
"[T]o ensure that City Club research and programming continue to be on the cutting edge, we are again conducting our annual 'Community Scan' to learn what is on your mind," is how the explanation reads.
Whenever we make mention of the City Club of Portland, it tends to elicit a rather broad spectrum of opinion about the long-standing civic organization -- usually a debate over to what degree it has been, or continues to be, an elitist group.
So we offer this brief pointer to their Community Scan in order to urge all parties, regardless of where they stand when it comes to the Club (the survey is open to everyone, Club member or otherwise), to answer the survey's three questions:
- What are the top two local or regional issues of public importance?
- Why are these issues important?
- Are these immediate concerns, or emerging, long-term issues?
All submissions to the Community Scan are due by July 25, 2005. If you've ever raised questions about the Club, now's your opportunity to see whether or not you can exert any influence upon the issues they examine and the events they sponsor.
But we also post this item to urge the City Club to publish the raw data out of this survey once its completed, so that everyone can see for themselves, in an open and transparent manner, just how the results eventually impact the organization's decision "to develop both citizen-based research studies as well as relevant and vibrant programming."