story as the story of somebody who
decided to go ahead and run for office
you might be able to guess who I’m
talking about ten years ago I don’t
think I would have ever been able to
tell you that I would be in this
position today in fact it was just a
little over four years ago that I
decided to run for office for the first
time in hindsight having been up against
a 12-year incumbent I don’t know if I
would have done it but I just wanted to
be able to to make a change make a
difference and really one of the one of
the main reasons why is the the idea
behind this talk
it is the importance of city and
resident collaboration and what is what
exactly is collaboration well it’s the
act of working together to create or
achieve something and so if you look at
this picture you know this might conjure
up images such as this you’ve got groups
working together they’re rolling up the
sleeves this is actually pertaining to
some transportation initiatives to look
at transportation throughout our County
to include transit options and so when
we talk about the importance of of
collaboration of resident engagement you
know those cities that actually do
employ methods of collaboration that
really engage and ask for participation
from their residents do a number of
things one they can conduct surveys I
found in our city that prior to the
survey that we had conducted just in
this janice last January it had been
over ten years since the survey had
actually been conducted another thing
they can do is to encourage two-way
communication so instead of just
informing people and pushing out
information to actually engage people in
a conversation the other thing that that
cities can and should do that seek
collaborative efforts is to ask for
participation from their residents
through such thing as committees as
service projects and through
volunteering there are all kinds of
opportunities to be able to do that we
we will be doing that this year in our
city when it comes to redoing our
general plan and also community
visioning projects that really talk
about what we want to see in our city
going forward so really when you when
you think about the concept of being
collaborative it kind of it kind of is
common sense
I mean practical experience and and just
just a general general view would would
state you know that you would much
rather live in a city that is
collaborative than one that is not you
know ask yourself this question would
you like to live in an environment where
your opinion is never sought or asked no
my question is no thank or the answer’s
no so then the question becomes well
then why is that so rare why is it such
a rarity that that opinions are sought
by elected officials and by city
officials of residents that live in
their cities I’ve come up with a few
different few different reasons why
based on my experience reason number one
I think is a just general misconception
of the the office that one
oftentimes people that are elected as
representatives feel like okay I have
now been elected and it is now my
thoughts my ideas my actions that that
really should be driving the agenda and
it is this misperception that I think
lends to the lack of collaboration that
we see so often in cities it isn’t so
much that yes you were elected to
represent the people and to be able to
set I think the larger the larger
context or the larger agenda but the
actual how the implementation needs to
occur with input from your constituents
another reason is low voter turnout we
as residents we this is a participatory
participatory process if we want
collaboration to occur it is a two-way
street sadly sadly it is not uncommon to
see less than 15% voter turnout in
municipalities in fact there was a
recent study that was done by Portland
State University that showed that of the
top 200 metropolitan areas and cities
only about 15% of people actually vote
and we’re talking about your cities here
this is where the rubber really meets
the road and where there is more impact
I would argue and I would contend
there’s more impact in your individual
lives that comes from the policies that
are created at the city level than there
are
back in Washington DC and yet we have
such low voter turnout if we have a 50
percent turnout that’s actually viewed
as an enormous success just to put it
into some context in riverton City here
we have in this last mayoral race we
actually approached 50% whereas
historically we’ve only been in the in
the 20% range so of all eligible voters
only about 20%
that have been voting and I think that
one of the reasons why we had a larger
turnout this year was because we made
this topic of collaboration a central
issue in the campaign reason number
three that I’ll offer up is just
mistrust and apathy in addition to low
voter turnout you have so many the the
mindset that’s very prevalent amongst
eligible voters is well why vote it
doesn’t make a difference in fact
another poll that was recently done
showed that LA in LA County alone 67
percent over two thirds of the people
that were polled that were eligible to
vote indicated the reason they’re not
voting is because it doesn’t make a
so another reason that I’ll offer up is
communication I like this quote from
George Bernard Shaw that says the single
biggest problem in communication is the
illusion that’s actually taking place
and I I’ve seen that so often in
negotiations in communications with with
residents so let’s move on to how how do
cities then best collaborate with
residents and I would contend that the
first point you have to do is really ask
that’s something that I made a pivotal
part of the this last campaign in the
city is to ask offering up surveys
having online and offline forums
opportunities for engagement I think
first and foremost public officials are
public they should be in the public and
they should be communicating with the
public that is that is a leadership
thing we need to be able to to be able
to really lead on that the other way in
which cities can foster a collaboration
and a really collaborative environment
is to leverage technology now we have a
number of new technologies that we need
to be embracing that can really engage
the public much more so than they’ve
ever been we are here at Riverton city
were implementing a few of those now
we’ll be rolling out a new mobile
application for example that gives
residents not just the opportunity to
report a problem
but to also provide feedback and be a
real engagement mechanism in addition to
that we’re also leveraging technology
through new website where gives forums
and opportunities for people to to come
and and discuss ideas electronic
newsletters a city can be a curator an
aggregator of information and be able to
present that to residents in a format
that’s easily consumed and so having
something every other week that we
distribute to residents that shows what
is going on with the city in a way that
that that they can they can move to
action right away
one thing that we found and this was
this was through a best practice at
another city is to conduct what we’re
doing now every week called the mayor’s
minute it’s a short little minute video
segment that we put on our social media
on our website that just tells people
what is going on you know here’s what is
going on in the week and we’ve had a
tremendous feedback with this we also
can livestream council meetings we can
do other meetings as well let’s not just
force people to come to City Hall let’s
take City Hall to them and we can do
that
via livestream over the Internet and I
would also say that we need to create
opportunities for volunteerism and
engagement what we are doing now in
riverton City also we accrue creating
committees our council had recently
created an ordinance that allows the
mayor to create these standing
committees that we’re focused on
originally with economic development
with Parks and Recreation with events
and emergency preparedness and this will
allow more residents to be involved and
engaged in the policy-making process and
feel like they are really contributing
to the city focus groups and open houses
also provide those types of
opportunities
so I would just say that being in a
building an environment or fostering an
environment or city that has a really
collaborative relationship with as
residence is not it is not rocket
science it’s not hard it’s just
something that does need to be done and
I think it can be through just leading
asking for it using the correct
technology to leverage and be
collaborative and then to host
opportunities for volunteerism and
engagement through such things as
committees and I would just urge all of
you to be active in the community and to
reach out and find ways to participate
and thank you
[Applause] [Music]