Subcommittee Continues Work on Community Public Input Meetings

On Thursday February 29th, the Public Input Subcommittee continued discussion of potential public input events outside of Council Chambers. In the Subcommittee’s January meeting, our Executive Director Richard Young pitched two ideas for what public input meetings outside of City Hall could look like:

1.) Issue Expos: An Issue Expo could be used for input about one specific item or issue being considered in City Hall. Based on CivicLex’s recent successful Civic Expos in high schools across the city, this type of event could consist of Councilmembers and LFUCG Divisions and Departments that engage with the item/issue tabling for a set amount of time at an accessible venue.

2.) Committee Previews: Based on our upcoming Civic Breakfast and our past On the Table events, this type of event could consist of a Council Committee hosting a two-part event where the Committee presents the topics coming up over the next quarter or 6 months, and then has facilitated On the Table-style conversations about the topics.

After a more robust review of the two ideas, Subcommittee members were especially interested in the Issue Expo proposal. An Issue Expo could potentially be easier to promote as a more informal event around one singular, likely hot-topic issue.

The Subcommittee will begin working on an Issue Expo event sometime in the next few months as a sort of pilot, and will discuss the idea with other Councilmembers to gauge their interest in participating.