Friday, August 10, 2007
One neighborhood's issues
I wanted to share a little slice of life that happens to come from the Lake Louise area. One of the things that council members do is run interference for members of the public with concerns and questions. There were a lot of concerns and questions after a community meeting last Tuesday night at Lakes High School. The meeting had to do with traffic concerns in the neighborhood; but as you will see from the following note, your council members have to keep watch on more than just the actual concerns themselves.
So I am posting this partly as an example of the sort of thing that your council members do for you. Not all correspondence involves complaints of this magnitude, but asking questions on behalf of citizens is definitely part of the job.
And I am also posting this note because if you were at the meeting on 104th, I'd be grateful for your thoughts and impressions about the meeting and the traffic issue itself. Just to bring some sense of completion, I'll let you know what the city manager says to explain the situation:
To; the city manager, police chief and public works director, with cc's to City Councilman Doug Richardson and County Councilman Dick Muri:
Hi there - Doug and Dick Muri and I (and certainly perhaps others) have received some inquiries from two neighbors and someone involved with National Night Out about what's going on at 104th, so I wanted to ask a couple questions.
I simply don't have the time today to phrase the following questions tactfully, and apologize in advance for the wording. I should note that both neighbors said they were impressed with the fact-gathering and perspective of the city staff, and both neighbors were very sorry that they could not be heard (comments below). Both spent a lot of time saying nice things about staff.
1. Why did we schedule the community meeting the same evening as National Night Out?
2. Does the city have any sort of written policy to avoid sabotaging our own events, or what practices and procedures are in place to avoid time conflicts?
2. Two different people told me that the acoustics and screen presentation only made the crowd angrier. Assuming the facts as stated, and please correct me if the report is incorrect, can someone explain how we ended up in an unsuitable place for public presentations given the importance of customer service?
3. Do we have any practices and procedures for ensuring communications to citizens, particularly the elderly and hard of hearing, are appropriate? Given that the council as a whole expressed strong concern about presentations that fail even within City Hall, what more can the council do to guarantee we don't unnecessarily anger our citizens? Feel free to help me out by completing this sentence that I can use at a council meeting: "I make a motion that ..."
4. What exactly is going on with traffic proposals for 104th? What is the purpose of the meeting on Aug. 23, and what time will it be?
Thanks,
Walter
Here's part of a note from a citizen about the presentation:
(snip)
P.S. This is not the main subject of this note but unfortunately the audio/ visual setup in the Lakes gym was extremely poor and caused considerable consternation among the audience. Part of the speakers were not working; many times the audience yelled out"
We can't hear you; Speak into the mike" "Don't mumble" Many of the slides were almost unreadable due to small print. No wireless mikes were available so individuals could be heard by the group and the presenters. With an already somewhat hostile audience the poor audio/visual setup served to detract quite a bit from good communication between the citizens and the Lakewood officials. This is unfortunate since it was evident that the presenters had worked hard to gather the data necessary to understand and resolve the citizen complaints. I believe the next meeting will be in the city hall and the audio/visuals will be more satisfactory.
Forward this post
So I am posting this partly as an example of the sort of thing that your council members do for you. Not all correspondence involves complaints of this magnitude, but asking questions on behalf of citizens is definitely part of the job.
And I am also posting this note because if you were at the meeting on 104th, I'd be grateful for your thoughts and impressions about the meeting and the traffic issue itself. Just to bring some sense of completion, I'll let you know what the city manager says to explain the situation:
To; the city manager, police chief and public works director, with cc's to City Councilman Doug Richardson and County Councilman Dick Muri:
Hi there - Doug and Dick Muri and I (and certainly perhaps others) have received some inquiries from two neighbors and someone involved with National Night Out about what's going on at 104th, so I wanted to ask a couple questions.
I simply don't have the time today to phrase the following questions tactfully, and apologize in advance for the wording. I should note that both neighbors said they were impressed with the fact-gathering and perspective of the city staff, and both neighbors were very sorry that they could not be heard (comments below). Both spent a lot of time saying nice things about staff.
1. Why did we schedule the community meeting the same evening as National Night Out?
2. Does the city have any sort of written policy to avoid sabotaging our own events, or what practices and procedures are in place to avoid time conflicts?
2. Two different people told me that the acoustics and screen presentation only made the crowd angrier. Assuming the facts as stated, and please correct me if the report is incorrect, can someone explain how we ended up in an unsuitable place for public presentations given the importance of customer service?
3. Do we have any practices and procedures for ensuring communications to citizens, particularly the elderly and hard of hearing, are appropriate? Given that the council as a whole expressed strong concern about presentations that fail even within City Hall, what more can the council do to guarantee we don't unnecessarily anger our citizens? Feel free to help me out by completing this sentence that I can use at a council meeting: "I make a motion that ..."
4. What exactly is going on with traffic proposals for 104th? What is the purpose of the meeting on Aug. 23, and what time will it be?
Thanks,
Walter
Here's part of a note from a citizen about the presentation:
(snip)
P.S. This is not the main subject of this note but unfortunately the audio/ visual setup in the Lakes gym was extremely poor and caused considerable consternation among the audience. Part of the speakers were not working; many times the audience yelled out"
We can't hear you; Speak into the mike" "Don't mumble" Many of the slides were almost unreadable due to small print. No wireless mikes were available so individuals could be heard by the group and the presenters. With an already somewhat hostile audience the poor audio/visual setup served to detract quite a bit from good communication between the citizens and the Lakewood officials. This is unfortunate since it was evident that the presenters had worked hard to gather the data necessary to understand and resolve the citizen complaints. I believe the next meeting will be in the city hall and the audio/visuals will be more satisfactory.
