City of Victoria Public Forum on Citizen Engagement – Oct. 28th
Derived from the Cuff Report, the City of Victoria is under going a public consultation process to determine priorities and ideas from citizens, business and stakeholders for community decision making. Lead by City of Victoria Communications Director 
Katie Josephson and Councilor Sonya Chandler there are a number of platforms for people to participate – an IdeaScale online Wiki to suggest, comment on and vote for ideas, a discussion board on the City’s Facebook page, a PDF document for group work, and a Public Forum this week.
Wednesday October 28th – at the Victoria Conference Centre – from 4 to 9pm. The City is inviting everyone who has an interest in Public Engagement to attend. This has been designed as a family friendly event with games and interactive stations.
Mayor & Council > Governance
City Council has endorsed a new decision-making model to align advisory committees with Council priorities and create more meaningful opportunities for public participation. This model was endorsed based on a recent review of Council decision-making processes, conducted by the management consulting firm of George Cuff and Associates.
The City of Victoria Governance Review recommended a number of strategies to improve Council decision-making and make the advisory committee structure more valuable to those contributing and to informing Council decisions.
The new model includes four Council standing committees and six public advisory committees to support those committees. Committee of the Whole will now be known as the Governance and Priorities Committee and will focus on issues that affect the community or organization as a whole.
Terms of Reference for the new advisory committees will be finalized in the coming weeks and an information session will be offered on April 2009 before the new model will be implemented June 30, 2009.
George Cuff Report on Governance – [PDF 621KB]
Standing Committees of Council - Terms of Reference – [PDF 62KB]
Public Advisory Committees - Terms of Reference – [PDF 70KB]
Standing Committees of Council – Summary of Terms of Reference – [PDF 55KB]
Governance Model Diagram – [PDF 30KB]
Part of the discussion with this process about public engagement is a definition and limits – the ‘blue sky’ ideals of open governance models with online social media and meetings, versus the practicalities. In conversations and emails with Katie Josephson a number of points, and thoughts for consideration become apparent – and thanks to Katie for these…
- What types of activities fit into the spectrum of participation. I.e. If we’re working from the category of inform and raise awareness on the left to empowerment and collaboration on the right of the spectrum, what type of civic matters require what level of public participation?
- At what point should a referendum be called, when should the City limit activity to simple awareness strategies…
- How can the City balance the views of “ a “well-informed minority” with the views of the “silent majority” who do not regularly participate?
- How should the City balance exploration and learning activities with opportunities for vigorous debate?
- How much is “too much” public engagement?
All these points should be considered as the City moves into a new ‘PE’ program, with a note that no engagement policy should be fixed, rather it can and should change as new technologies emerge and gain popular usage (like Facebook and Twitter).
On the IdeaScale online forum one idea gaining a number of votes is ‘Wisdom Councils‘ – while the one I feel should be prevalent as the basis for all forms of engagement is Open Data …there are certainly more ideas for real public engagement with our elected city officials and city staff, and everyone is encouraged to participate.