To the editor,
I attended the city’s public engagement session at Oliver Woods on Aug. 16.
All of the engagement methods proposed were very interesting (open houses, town hall meetings, world cafés, Samoan circles, open space meetings) revolving around a theme of gathering people together and using a variety of approaches to stimulate discussion between attendees. Unfortunately, I do not believe many Nanaimo residents are predisposed to using up an evening or time on the weekend to discuss civic issues in a public forum.
However, a city staff member I spoke with had a fantastic proposal – city council and staff using Twitter to encourage citizens to engage in Nanaimo government. Apparently it is working well for a small city in Spain whose mayor was searching for an effective method to engage the people. It is a very quick way for residents to provide feedback on an issue, and city government to provide bite-sized insights. I think it embraces modern trends in society and technology.
A secondary method is for city government to write editorials from their perspective for the newspaper. This is done in many cities around the world and gives city officials a platform with wide distribution and engagement. Often Nanaimo citizens are upset by decisions made by city government, weekly editorials from members of city government would provide residents a quick and easy method to gain some understanding on the rationale behind city decisions.
Creative ways of forming groups of residents to discuss city issues at length is laudable, but, I think impractical. Fast and easy methods of engaging citizens are ones which I believe people will actually use.
David Wang, Nanaimo