I’ve been thinking and reading and thinking some more about what might be the best way to add a citizen engagement stage into our 2012-2013 budget-making process. I’ve been involved in citizen budget engagement processes before, but I am hoping to come up with something that could be really interesting and useful in Edina.
Then, it came to me: the Citizens League. if there is anybody in the governmental sphere in Minnesota that knows how to organize and execute a citizen engagement process, it’s the Citizens League. I know some people over there (they’re located in St. Paul), so I’m heading over there tomorrow (Thursday, Aug 25) for a visit. We’re going to discuss what we’re looking for and what their resources are.
I’m a fan of the Citizens League. I’m looking forward to the meeting.
One of our Edina residents, Curtis Johnson, used to head up the CL just a couple of years ago. Great guy…we have great citizen resources here!
Great citizen resources indeed, Katherine.
In fact, Curtis commented on this budget blog a couple of weeks ago:
http://edinacitizenengagement.org/2012budget/2011/08/01/steve-elkins-not-every-enterprise-can-do-more-with-less/#comment-38
I met with Bob DeBoer and Stacey Becker at Citizen’s League HQ yesterday (Thursday) to discuss the possibility of engaging them to help me engage Edina residents in our 2012-2013 budget making process.
The conversation was invigorating! They’ve got exactly what we need: a process that puts citizens at just the right place at just the right time in the process.
We will start meeting soon to set up the details, but we are zeroing in on the first two weeks of October.
More later…
Thanks, Scott. I see you’ve posted an update on your blog, too.