Felt Needs

I spent Wed & Thurs evening sitting at the NW & SE city partnership/quadrant/neighborhood meetings with the hope of listening and understanding what people in these communities felt were the needs of the community. What I didn’t anticipate was that our mayor Tom Henry & his crew would be there discussing the recent news of property taxes being cut which impacts the city budget and how that will impact city programs and services. The good I took away from the meeting, was the fact they wanted to give the citizens, or at least the ones that showed up the chance to voice what they believe is important and what services could receive cuts based on their understanding of the community.

This is a great concept and give the city the credit for truly seeking the citizens input on this. I’m not sure how many venues that they’ve done this excercise in, but if they are only doing it in these quadrant meetings where at best 40 people have attended, then is that really a good sample of the community. So, I’ll put faith in the city that they have a much larger sample size that what I’ve been apart of.

I am a little disappointed however that once the mayor was finished, everyone packed up and left. Not one city official that wasn’t supposed to be there stuck around to hear the quadrant residents share what was going on. They came in, did their presentation, fielded a few questions, packed up and left. Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth that they didn’t have the smarts to stick around for the entire meeting. I know they have other people there representing the city, such as council members, but it’s a bit different, especially when you’re already there.

Anyway.. great things were discussed and I encourage everyone, especially members of churches to begin going to these regular, monthly meetings to listen to the felt needs and consider how you, as a Christian should respond.

You can find the meeting times here..