Agenda Packets - 1995/09/05 - Laserfiche WebLink

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help carry out a citizen participation process and conduct related research. In addition, University faculty are providing consultation and guidance throughout the process. Planned Approach: The citizen participation plan was developed with guidance and expertise from planning faculty at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, as well as support from other social scientists and community development professionals. A list of resource people is provided as an attachment to this document. Community Meetings: To solicit community input,the Arsenal Cleanup and Conversion Project will coordinate a series of community meetings. Three to five meetings will be held in each of the four towns of Arden Hills, Mounds View,New Brighton, and Shoreview, for a total of twelve to twenty meetings. All but four of the meetings (in other words, 8-16 meetings) will be open to residents, businesses or workers from each of the four towns. Members of nearby towns also will be welcome to attend,though not contacted specifically. The remaining four meetings will be designed to solicit input from specific constituency groups --namely, businesses, youth, elderly, and low income and displaced workers. The reason for holding targeted meetings is that these groups frequently are left out of community planning and other citizen participation processes. Additional efforts need to be made to ensure that they are included so that the process represents a wide range of community voices. Members of these groups from all four towns may attend these meetings, as there is only one meeting planned per group. Meetings will be held in different geographic locations throughout each city to encourage maximum participation and attract a broad range of participants. Participation will also be solicited through community organizations (such as churches, PTAs or neighborhood associations) that agree to sponsor a meeting. Sponsors would help contact members regarding the meeting and provide meeting space, for example. It is anticipated that an average of 15-20 people will attend each meeting, for a total of 180 to 400 participants. This number is considered sufficient for a representative sample, according to commonly accepted sociological and anthropological research methods. Rationale for Approach The series of community meetings was designed to encourage interactive discussion, which a survey would not accomplish. Meetings will be convenient to people's homes and bring neighbors together. This type of forum should stimulate good thinking through the mutual exchange of ideas, and generate a positive sense of collective problem-solving. 2