One hundred twenty-five Falls Church City residents braved an icy parking lot and frigid temperatures on Saturday, March 17 to deliberate together on the future of the city. In response to their proposals for actions that individuals, groups and government need to take, the event’s organizers are announcing a survey, online and by mail, to help prioritize those proposals.
“People asked me afterward ‘Now what’s going to happen?’ My answer is three things,” said Phil Duncan, a member of the Deliberation Falls Church City Steering Committee and Citizens for a Better City. “First, we are going to use a survey to prioritize people’s ideas on what ought to be done. Second, the steering committee will issue a report on what the survey finds, and present it to the City Council and other official bodies. And third, and most important, the steering committee will follow up later in the year on what is and isn’t done. We intend to keep trying, whether through another event, survey, report, or other steps, to engage more people, more effectively, in working together to solve common challenges -- acting individually, through community organizations and through decisions made by the city government.”
During the course of the March 17th Deliberation Day event at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School, attendees moved through four segments of small and large group discussions, providing people of varying interests and backgrounds an equal chance to have their questions answered and their opinions registered.
Mayor Robin Gardner, School Board Chair Craig Cheney, Planning Commission Chair Ruth Rodgers and Economic Development Authority Chair Ed Saltzberg responded to questions posed by participants in order to provide context for discussions about the trade-offs that are inherent in public decision-making. The panel was moderated by former Washington Post editor and Falls Church City resident Pete Behr. Questions included:
- What is being done about the loss of affordable housing?
- Will we have a fully integrated traffic and parking plan?How can we improve communication between citizens and government?
- How does the city resolve tensions between competing priorities?
- What difference is this meeting going to make in the way the city does things?
After one hour of questioning city officials, the attendees then proposed actions to be taken by individuals, by community organizations and by the government. Among the actions suggested were:
- Individuals should take an active role in city decision-making; they should vote, volunteer and shop in the city, and get younger people involved in civic affairs.
- Organizations should reach out to new buildings’ residents; more neighborhoods should form associations.
- Government should do better in getting information to citizens through a variety of means and activities, both new (visits to groups and neighborhoods) and old (welcoming activities); and, city officials should take responsibility for creating a better-informed community that can provide input to city decisions.
These and other suggestions are the topic of the upcoming survey, which will be online on Thursday March 22 via a link at www.DFCCVA.org. Any resident may receive the survey by mail by calling 703-927-0531.
Citizens for a Better City, the Falls Church City League of Women Voters and the Village Preservation and Improvement Society sponsored Deliberation Day. Attendees divided into eleven roundtable discussions led by George Mason High School juniors and adult volunteers on the topic “Falls Church City: What Are We Becoming?” A team of GMHS sophomores served as recorders for the morning’s deliberations.
The Center for Voter Deliberation (www.voterdeliberation.org) is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that is providing its services to Deliberation Day free, including training for student discussion leaders. The center is a member of the National Issues Forum network (www.nifi.org) and a grantee of the Kettering Foundation (www.Kettering.org), a leader for over twenty-five years in deliberative democracy research. The Deliberation Day format, the discussion guide and the discussion leader training are based on NIF and Kettering research.
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