We held our Fall 2007 Town Hall Meeting last night at Fire Station #4. We had 26 residents (not counting elected officials and staff) attend the meeting. 11 residents spoke. We had five speakers in favor of the City continuing to employee an immigrant services liaison; three express concerns about the change in fees at the Community Center; one was concerned about the City’s Capital Improvement Program budget; one concerned about the way we do the Town Hall Meetings; and one concerned (primarily) about our deer management program.
It was cold out last night, but it was warm in the fire station. We had plenty of microphones and speakers, but the acoustics weren’t so good. The evening wrapped up at around 7:45 pm.
The resident that commented about our Town Hall Meetings offered some insightful nuggets for us. We’ve been having our Town Hall Meetings out in the community – intentionally outside of City Hall – in order to attract more and different people to our meetings and to provide an atmosphere that is less formal and less stressful for the average citizen. The downside of taking these meetings outside of our Council Chambers, however, is that the logistics sometimes get in the way of very simple things like being able to physically hear the residents speaking. If we continue to have Town Hall Meetings in 2008, we may bring them back into our Council Chambers and do something unique with the live television feed, telephones and email. Maybe something like a “Virtual Town Hall Meeting”?
