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The Congress: Attend but Demand Results |
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Empowerment Report
By Greg Nelson
The Congress of Neighborhoods will be held at City Hall on Saturday. I will go, but not enthusiastically, because I think it will end up being another missed opportunity for the system.
I worry that if I express my concerns now, some will damn me for discouraging attendance. If I wait until afterwards, it could sound like Monday-morning quarterbacking.
The problem with the last few Congress events is that they have pretty much been carbon copies of the ones before them.
The drafters of the City Charter believed so strongly in the potential of bringing together neighborhood council leaders that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment is legally required to help the neighborhood councils organize them, but only if the councils want them to be held.
The Charter refers to the events as “meetings,” and before details were stripped from the final drafts of the new Charter, the expectations were that representatives of the neighborhood councils would gather to discuss and have their voices heard on the pressing citywide issues of the day. And that councils would be surveyed before starting the event planning effort.
It would also allow activists from around the city to be able to share local problems and solutions.
It’s fortunate that I printed and saved the most recent e-mail message from the department describing the program, because it isn’t available on the department’s website. Marketing mistake #1.
The people who attend Congress events have a limited amount of time for such things, but they will come if it’s relevant to them.
In looking at the program we see interesting workshop titles, but no indication as to who will be presenting information.
We are promised participation by city officials and staff, communications and marketing experts, professional leadership trainers, and movers and shakers. That sounds impressive but only one expert is mentioned by name.
I would be more likely to attend the session on, say, branding and marketing a neighborhood council if I knew that a senior member of an international public relations firm, or the president of the Public Relations Society was going to talk, as they have in the past. But if it’s going to be Fred and Polly from the Riverside Neighborhood Council, I expect the department and tell me, and not sucker me into a bait and switch. Marketing mistake #2.
So my hope is that people show up, but that they go with a determination to ensure that future Congresses belong to the neighborhood councils, and that the outcomes are the kind that will push the system forward toward greater empowerment.
Before you leave the event you should consider:
1. Insisting that within a week, that ALL neighborhood council leaders and stakeholders be invited analyze the event and begin discussing what will make the next one dynamic and valuable, and that the planning process be open to all and not, as was done this time, limited to a handful.
2. Telling DONE that you want its staff to summarize the valuable material that was presented and post it on its website as it used to do. Even if each workshop is videotaped, that would require 30 hours of viewing to get the same information that you could get in less than one hour from written “minutes.” If it’s only the people in the room who know what happened, the workshop wasn’t worth it.
3. Near the end of any workshops that you attend, suggest that there be an attempt to agree of some plan of action, or future meetings to do so. Otherwise, everyone will have wasted their time on chit chat.
You should ask why current hot button issues weren’t discussed.
The state ballot includes a dozen measures. We’re about to pick the leader of the Free World. The mayor just proposed a comprehensive housing plan. DONE barely communicates with neighborhood councils, and needs a written agreement with neighborhood councils as do some other departments.
The budget process still limits neighborhood councils to prioritizing a few general budget categories given to them by the mayor. Councils should say that they’ve proven themselves ready to go to the next level and begin providing advice on service cuts, cutting wasteful spending, eliminating red tape, possible tax and fee increases, improving service delivery, economic development, and employee wages.
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