President's Report What do the citizens want? The answer to that question drives many of the decisions our community leaders make. Yet, engaging the citizenry and truly understanding their perspectives is a challenge. I’m always looking for more effective ways of communicating with community members, and I was exposed to a promising new concept at the recent National League of Cities Conference in Pittsburgh. The Mayor of Pittsburgh talked about the success his team has experienced using deliberative community forums. The forums are a tool for engaging community members in important city decisions. What struck me most about the deliberative community forum process was its ability to arm community members with relevant information and then capture their informed opinions after they have a comprehensive understanding of the situation. The forums aren’t about building consensus or group decision-making. They are simply about understanding the public’s perspective.
Important city decisions are often marred by ill-informed opinions and stymied by coffee-talk rumors. This is one way to get in front of the misinformation and truly understand what our community members want. Deliberative community forums do require quite a bit of upfront work and a specific process, but in the end, I think the process could be a very effective way of informing commission decisions. Deliberative Community Forums are something I expect the City of Pierre to start using in coming months. If you’d like more information about how they work, visit theartofdemocracy.org. Laurie Gill President
JANUARY 2017
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