Title
Creating an Inter-Departmental Public Involvement Workgroup.
Body
WHEREAS, the City of Saint Paul has a long legacy of promoting public involvement; and,
WHEREAS, the City of Saint Paul has built and updated considerable civic infrastructure to support public involvement over the past forty years, including the creation of the District Council system, the creation of the Early Notification System, the adoption of web-based public input tools, the use of social media by city departments to communicate current activities; and,
WHEREAS, the City adopted a new classification of Community Engagement Specialist and departments have begun to recruit and hire staff to bring strategic and operational support to public involvement activities; and,
WHEREAS, the City of Saint Paul has expanded on its public involvement activities in multiple areas, including land use planning, police-community relations, workforce recruitment, parks design and policy development; and,
WHEREAS, common benefits to residents of public involvement activities include improving residents’ trust in and knowledge of how government works, their confidence in their ability to influence city government and their social bonds with one another; and,
WHEREAS, the Mayor and City Council share a commitment to expanding opportunities for public involvement in city government, especially among communities of color; and
WHEREAS, future success in public involvement across city government requires coordinated goals and strategies for all city departments…
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council will work with the Mayor to convene a working group on public involvement with the following charge:
1. Inventory current public involvement activities across city departments;
2. Identify Public Involvement Principles to guide how the City of Saint Paul will intentionally include impacted stakeholders in policy development and program accountability;
3. Solicit city staff and resident input regarding the primary organizational and community challenges to and opportunities for improving public involvement outcomes and identify areas of strategic focus for improving public involvement outcomes;
4. Recommend, by September 30, 2017, a process for developing and implementing a City of Saint Paul Public Involvement Strategic Plan that addresses the areas of strategic focus through the Public Involvement Principles and includes a mechanism for resident advice and oversight.
The committee shall be staffed by Council Research and its membership will include directors of the following departments, or their designees:
• Department of Public Works
• Department of Planning and Economic Development
• Saint Paul Public Library
• Police Department
• Department of Parks and Recreation
• Department of Safety and Inspections