Agenda - Council Work Session - 02/19/2013 - Strategic Planning

Home

Ramsey Final Report Grant No. 05 -1237 City of Ramsey of discussion and respect rather than sometimes antagonistic and even disrespectful interchanges that had occurred before. As each participant in the talking circle made their comments, many of them reflected on the changes that Ramsey had brought to the city. Some talked of a new spirit of collaboration and respect that had developed. Others mentioned how they no longer saw staff as adversaries or "tools" of developers. Final Thoughts by Participants Several key themes ran through that final meeting. First, as several people openly commented Ramsey will never be the same again. While it is obviously still too early to evaluate the long -term impact of the project, its short term impact was clear to many. As one put it, "We have our city back." A second theme was that citizens are learning to communicate as opposed to pontificate. The public hearing process and many routine city functions such as Planning Commission and Council meetings dealing with specific issues or projects tend to encourage people to use the microphone as a soap box to advance personal agendas. Others come with a "not in my back yard" attitude. This tends to encourage confrontation rather than collaboration. This project proposed and nurtured an alternative means of communication. This is a profound cultural shift in the way cities normally do business, but the comments of the participants in this project and, more pointedly, their own behavior, suggests that an alternative paradigm exists, one that is based on collaboration, not conflict, one that is based on communication not confrontation. In short, Ramsey citizens are learning to talk with one another. We harbor no illusions that this paradigm shift will instantly transform the city or even that over the long term that it will succeed, but those who attended that last evening told us that they had seen an alternative to "business as usual" and that they embraced it. A third theme that emerged was that citizen involvement is meaningless unless it truly has a process to involve citizens. There is not a city in America that does not honestly harbor a belief in citizen involvement. Our democracy began at the local level, with hundreds of "liberty trees" and community groups. Yet, in the past few decades, for various reasons, there is little doubt that city government and citizen participation have become problematical. Harvard professor Robert Putnam, the author of the best - selling Bowling Alone has studied what he terms civic engagement for several decades and has found that over the last few decades it has steadily deteriorated. One of the major findings of this project is that the old processes no longer work. So- called public hearings, for example, have deteriorated into public confrontations. While OST and some of the other processes used by this project may not be THE answer, they suggest that this country needs to explore new way of empowering citizens at the local level. If democracy began at the local level, then that is where democracy will be preserved and even reborn. In the end this project reminds us that democracy is nurtured one citizen and one community at a time; that there are no formulas, no consultants' quick fixes and packaged methodologies. One participant at the final session put it well, "I hope I never see any more of those silly dots again!"