Yesterday’s City Council meeting included an update by the city’s new Community Engagement Manager Tiesha Hinton on Raleigh’s new community engagement system.
TL/DR: “Community committees” that represent different types of people living in Raleigh will functionally replace the old CAC system. These would feel more like HOAs that have a seat at the table, except you don’t owe them any dues and your membership’s based on who you are (not where you live). Concerns about neighborhoods (the kinds CACs grew around) will be heard through mechanisms that already exist in the City.
I tried to summarize it below since the attached slide deck had some figures I thought were poorly designed and explained. Click each sentence to see infographics on who’s doing what:
Click here for the summary and infographics.
For each infographic, note that you (the citizen) are at the bottom center. You’re obviously both a part of the neighborhood you live in (orange) and communities you belong to (blue; e.g. being a renter, being new to Raleigh, being a cyclist). So ideally, you want both types of your opinions to be heard by the City (i.e. for your orange and blue arrows to reach a green block).
CACs were supposed to be more democratic, until they weren't.
CACs were supposed to let citizens have a direct say in local decisions. But as we all know, they ended up being an abused loudspeaker for privileged nay-sayers.
Obviously, the only types of voices that made it into the City’s ears were those from neighborhoods. This is why CACs were a problem, and it’s why they were thrown out.
So we got rid of them, and we're working on a better system.
…we are trying to come up with a better mechanism. A new Office of Community Engagement was created, but we’re still ironing out how it’ll work in the grand scheme of things.
Phase 1 of the new system involves creating a Community Engagement Board.
The idea is that, if you say ‘let’s ask our citizens about this!’, you’ll go to them.
It’s not yet clear who will be on it, how they’ll get there, and how much power they’ll have. This will be something to keep an eye on in the coming months. However, the slide deck did include the roles they’re expected to have:
Phase 2 involves connecting CEBs to the voices of Raleigh's many communities.
Once CEBs are formed, they will help organize people from different interest groups into Community Committees.
Each committee will represent the interests of its constituents, so the CEB could ask these committees for opinions on specific things. The presentation included these examples of “focus areas” that could inform what sorts of committees could exist:
- Young adults
- Seniors
- Low-wealth communities
- Renters
- City programs, projects, and services
- Newcomers
- Language accessibility
More about who will be on the committees and how they'd work.
The committees will have to do the following things:
The idea is that these groups will be “comprised of residents with similar interest and an equitable lens on lived experiences”, and act as a bridge between the CEB and the communities they represent. Members of the CEB will “serve on a committee(s) in a leadership capacity” as well.
The idea seems to be that these committees will represent stakeholder (citizen) interests, and not city functions like planning or historic district maintenance. Because of that, the committees will “cover topics that are not explicitly overseen by a current board/commission” that already exist and report to City Council.
Click here for more observations and thoughts.
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There is a difference between neighborhoods of places (e.g. Glenwood South Neighborhood Collaborative, Mordecai Townes HOA) and communities of similar people (e.g. renters, transit users, people who are new to Raleigh). The City’s latest move carves that understanding in stone.
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The City’s existing Housing and Neighborhoods Department will be seen as the part of the city that works with neighborhoods. Likewise, the Office of Community Engagement is envisioned as the part of the city that works with communities.
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You might think this process of replacing CACs is taking forever, but it’s actually super quick. The office that drafted the proposed outline is just four months old, and it only has two people on staff for now.
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Council members who were there for the presentation (i.e. everyone except David Cox) seem to have liked what Hinton had to show. All members who spoke (Stewart, Knight, and Branch) made a point of praising just how quickly they were able to create this proposal, as well as the committee groups they used as examples.
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Who should sit in the first Community Engagement Board? Community members scouted by the Office? Volunteers approved by City Council? Both? That’s the question Hinton wanted Council to answer, but council members got carried away with talking about how cool her proposal was.