Policy recommendation submitted to CLIC by Commissioner Lewis
Brittany Lewis
Hello Commissioners!
Here is the policy recommendation that I drafted and was tabled by the city council and never fully engaged. I discussed this during our open forum today.
Proposed 2014 CLIC General Comment (Policy Recommendation)
Improving Robust Community Input To Strengthen the CLIC Process
CLIC has been troubled by the decline in resident participation in the annual joint public held with the Minneapolis Planning Commission. No residents attended the 2014 joint public hearing. CLIC has found after extensive research that the City of St. Paul’s Capital Budget Process incorporates several different stakeholders throughout the process at the neighborhood and city levels prior to capital budget adoption. This multi-tiered system of review has positive outcomes through decreased controversy and assuring wider buy-in from multiple sectors across the City. CLIC suggests that the City Council can add value to the Minneapolis' process and further solidify its commitment to equitable community engagement by reinforcing processes that are already underway and making a policy changes effective with the 2015 CLIC process.
CLIC has continually found that the capital budget requests submitted by City departments usually are unable to succinctly answer the following questions:
Why was this particular site for capital improvement dollars chosen over various other areas throughout Minneapolis in similar need?
What types of community engagement processes did your department execute to ensure maximum local residential support of proposed project?
City departments' inability to directly answer these questions is troubling. CLIC proposes that the City council not reproduce city efforts for community engagement, but use its powers to help reinforce those that are already underway. For example, the Neighborhood and Community Relations (NCR) department and the Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission (NCEC) have an effort underway to document and evaluate community engagement ethics of City departments. CLIC is confident that City departments can meet a more robust community engagement standard when implemented.
CLIC proposes the general outline that it believes is consistent with the City's adopted Principles of Community Engagement. CLIC requests that the City Council revise and include in the official CLIC process the following:
Require that each City department or Independent Board solicit capital budget requests from the community (neighborhood organizations, community agencies, cultural organizations, and individual residents and business stakeholders) at least 60 days before compiling its final proposal to CLIC.
Require that the City host a public meeting or forum prior to submission to the CLIC process to address all submitted community based proposals indicating which proposals will be incorporated into the final departments capital budget requests, and those proposals that were not feasible as capital budget requests, and perhaps better addressed through different City processes or programs.
Require that City departments or Independent Boards review and document their actions in this area during the official capital budget presentations during the CLIC process, including descriptions of its community outreach process, the proposals submitted by the community process, and reasons for accepting or rejecting incorporation of those proposals, especially as it relates to the fulfillment of City goal
Best!
Andres Hortillosa
Andres D. Hortillosa, MBA, MS
President
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