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Welcome to our online discussion.
One of the keys to good government is openness, accountability, and honest, two-way dialogue. That's why the City of Victoria is committed to improving the way that we communicate with you.
The City is currently embarking on a program to determine the best way to reach, and hear from, our citizens. When it comes to City issues, how do you want to be heard? And how would you like us to connect with you?
The whole goal is to improve civic decision-making; that is, to improve the way we make decisions that affect your everyday life, make information easier to access, and offer more, and varied, opportunities for you to have your say. This online discussion, along with other channels - including a survey on our website, in person events, information mailed to each household, and more - will allow us to hear what you have to say.
Do you have an easy-to-implement suggestion that would improve two-way communication? Perhaps you have an out-of-the-box idea you would love to share. This is the place to do it. Submit your idea, vote on other submissions, and add your comments. Join in the conversation. We'll be in it, too.
How to Participate
- In the space below, write down your top idea for improving engagement between the City of Victoria and its citizens.
- Check out what other ideas have been suggested.
- Rate them by clicking on the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" icons, or provide your own comments and additions.
- Return to this site regularly to find out how other people have voted on your ideas, and vote and comment on other people's ideas.
Disclaimer
The City of Victoria is not responsible for the comments submitted here. Please keep your comments respectful and constructive.
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What is your top idea for improving the way the City of Victoria connects with its citizens?
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Ideally, Victoria should have its own '311' system [to handle urgent but non-emergency calls] like many other municipalities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and others. What about sharing costs for a 311 system with Saanich and other municipalities in the Greater Victoria region? Also, for those who have Internet access, an email newsletter as well as a blog with an RSS feed would enable citizens to receive news about the City, especially if they could sign up to follow specific topics of interest, e.g. the Johnson Street bridge.
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Use the Wisdom Council model to engage citizens at "level 5" on the participation scale (1=inform, 5=collaborate). It is a demonstration of deep leadership and respect to involve people in the decisions that affect them. Proven engagement processes such as found at www.wisedemocracyvictoria.org provide principles and structures to make this work. The Wisdom Council is group of 12 randomly selected individuals who meet to discuss important issues, then report back to the community. The creative solutions are astounding. Thanks for asking!
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Establish a budget for all departments and City Council to regularly and meaningfully engage the diversity of Victoria's citizens.
For public participation to be done well, adequate resources must be dedicated for this purpose. Funding is needed to support new uses of technology, education and skills training, travel, administrative support, and expert assistance such as facilitators.
Departments should incorporate participation into the full cycle of project planning. Full-time positions should be established for public participation experts to build City staff skills, familiarity with technology, and other capacity building needs.
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Community conversations with ample notice provided. Avoid short timelines as they show no respect for the time required for democratic process.
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Scrap this idea in favour of a CRD program! Why? Because Victoria is just a small part of the metropolitan area. Nothing can be accomplished here without the cooperation of surrounding municipalities; e.g. Blue Bridge decisions or public transit!
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Mabye the city of Victoria could publicly post all recent changes in public policy and new events on annoucement board outside city hall
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Convene neighbourhood conversations about the future we want to have for this region.
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Ensure as many City of Victoria residents know about this process as possible, and provide more time for input - it appears rather rushed!
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Help fund community associations to become meaningful places for ongoing, participatory citizen engagement. The structures already exist -- it's a matter of using them.
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Provide subscribable calendars.
Garbage collection would be a popular one. I'd subscribe immediately.
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The City of Victoria should explore creating connections - social, political, economic - with local Aboriginal groups - encouraging open dialogue and greater engagement opportunities with this community.
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I really liked the way the Fisherman's Wharf Park project was handled: stakeholders were involved in strategy and a broad community base was invited to give opinions at several key phases. If it is not web-based, more of the elders will be involved and that's a good thing. Jill at Fisherman's Wharf
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Set a good example by being open and honest at the very beginning of any engagement with the public. Find out why civil servants are afraid to be honest and open. Ask them.
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Make full use of the City's FaceBook fan page - polls, active discussions on topics that matter moderated by city staff, meaningful and engaging status updates (synchronized to twitter of course)
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Select councillors hold a town-hall meeting, esp around important and contentious subjects like the sewage treatment, Blue Bridge, housing for homeless. Let citizens understand councillors' thought processes, ask questions, and provide input. Skilled facilitator required; select topics only. Do three/four times a year. I know, more time demanded of councillors, they'd be more exposed to the public; however, this would vastly improve upon lengthly and formal council meetings with required agenda items and hopefully provide much more information and understanding between elected officials and interested public on issues of greater magnitude.
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Stop development! Unless it provides reasonable low cost rental housing for Victoria poorer and working class citizens, or provides public recreation, or services for the community. Enforce high taxes for developers so that there would be money going back into the community.
At this point developers are just making huge amounts of money off of the backs of the poor. Every time I walk, which is every day, there is a new development happening in James Bay. I have lived here as a renter for 20 years soon I too will have nowhere to live that I can afford.
I have done a lot of work in this community, contributed much to the good of this community, as have many others but you don't make money doing that. Dean Fortin you have to change this! Ordinary people have nowhere to live and are forced into slum living. They are being penalized just because they chose not to exploit others for a living.
This used to be a poor to working class neighbourhood. Now, the people living in the expensive condos decide how this community is run. The other people are too busy working for their money. Stop ruining James Bay and the other central-to-downtown neighbourhoods. Stop putting money into the already bulging pockets of developers. How much money do these people need?!
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Open Data - follow the lead while still being in the vanguard. Vancouver, New York and Portland Or. all proactively offering Open Data feeds for citizens to create online (and off!) mash ups.
From that comes true engagement - and accountability.
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Help citizens move from dialogue to deliberation... dialogue is about talking to each other - which is good. Deliberation involves a thoughtful process based on information. Too often, citizens can't get the information they need about a city related topic in the form that best suits them. Make information available - on line or in other accessible formats - on topics of interest in varying levels of complexity - a quick overview, a deeper look, and a full range of data and opinion. In other words, help citizens move to a deeper understanding of the topic - and a more deliberative response - based on the level of information they are comfortable in absorbing.
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From our gut … we need help, we need the city to act, we need someone to listen. We do not need our tax $ spent on game playing like this recent survey. Please improve our air and noise quality here at James Bay!!!! Try exposing your health to trying to live healthy here at James Bay 365 days a year.
Drastically reduce the polutions by any way possible and Do IT SOON. Eventually there will be an epidepic of lung related diseases. And then what??
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Set up an online forum that will allow interested citizens to post questions and read responses from other Victoria residents as well as those responsible at city hall. The Lonely Planet Thorn Tree is a good example of the format.
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Publish a weekly e-newsletter that contains
a) what issues need the most attention at the moment
b) what new ideas have been contributed for the vote (re 'vote up' or 'vote down')
This is so that people don't have return to this site on-line continually, and remember what ideas they voted on.
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Stick to and honour the IAP2 core values that were endorsed by Council on June 10, 2009. /Ensure that significant issues are dealt with by at least the first three levels of participation envisaged in the IAP2 - that is, up to the Collaboration level.
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Demonstrate you are giving citizens what they want. The "city" chose a different new bridge design than what was clearly voted for by the community and didnt even give the option for us to vote on upgrading the blue bridge!
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Wiki-style co-creation of plans and strategies for upcoming issues like the OCP review, CRD wide land-use changes, Blue Bridge decision, fixed site needle exchange, sustainability framework, affordable housing strategy, etc.
Look to the Future Melbourne plan here: http://www.futuremelbourne.com.au/wiki/view/FMPlan.
The key is not only engagement, but accountability of the City of Victoria back to people submitting ideas - an honest, transparent two-way (or more!) dialogue.
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Check out this web site as a way community can participate in broad conversations and topics. http://www.changeeverything.ca/
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