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Overcoming the Bike Rack Effect
We’ve all been in meetings like this — I just didn’t know there was an accepted term for the phenomenon –Imagine a city council meeting with three agenda items: a $100 million power plant zoning approval, a request to build a $10,000 bike rack for city sidewalks and a $100 proposal to buy refreshments for the annual picnic. The power plant discussion takes all of 3 minutes to reach approval, as does the refreshment budget. But the $1000 bike rack debate drags on for hours as council members debate the right materials, the best color scheme and the right way to announce the project.
Tips for reviewing official statements
Do you have on your desk an “official statement” that you have to review or help draft? Or do you expect to have one soon? If so, this post will give you some ideas about how to do that effectively. If not – well, we love folks to read all of our posts, but it won’t hurt our feelings if you just bookmark this for when you need it.
Small Changes To These Two Areas Are Easy Ways To Better Engage Your Community
It’s time to change things up when it comes to public meetings if we want them to be effective. Our communities have changed and it’s time the way we hold public meetings changed too. As we discussed in this earlier post, residents aren’t coming to the meetings because they aren’t convenient. Making information more accessible and making meetings better experience for everyone are easy ways to make your community engagement more engaging.
What We Learned From Our Client Feedback Process
We had read many articles touting the benefits of an organized client feedback process, and so we wanted to go through one ourselves. It worked great – we learned a great deal and we’d highly recommend it – and we thought we would share some of what we learned.
Why Your Community Engagement Practices Are Failing to Engage Your Community
Most local government leaders say they want to provide access for all members of the community to voice concerns and opinions about issues affecting the community. Effective community engagement builds on-going, permanent relationships among individuals and interested organizations for the purposes of developing and applying a collective vision for the community’s benefit. Unfortunately, the way many communities actually practice community development works out quite differently. In many communities, community engagement is limited to formal meetings of the governing board and looks something like this, as summarized in a post from the blog Orange Politics:
You Ought to be in Pictures – Getting your community into the movie and TV business
The film industry can boost your local economy in both the short and long term. Throughout North Carolina, localities large and small have reaped the benefits. And the good news is that a small community does not even have to offer direct financial incentives to reap the benefits of promoting itself as “film friendly.” A municipality merely needs to provide a point of contact and provide community access.
Keep your local authorities and nonprofits in good working condition
Every county has an industrial authority (whether you know it or not). Most cities and towns will have a housing authority (sometimes whether you know it or not). Did you ever create a nonprofit corporation to facilitate a financing?
Make your nonprofit a “trusted agent” for local government
Early Days
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, Community Development Corporations (CDC’s) were the prime innovators in North Carolina’s urban and rural corridors for revitalization, affordable housing and small retail development. Organizations like Northwest Corridor CDC in Charlotte, Project Homestead in Greensboro and Rocky Mount-Edgecombe CDC were very successful in both housing and small retail development. Metropolitan Housing in Washington, NC excelled in both housing and health services. These organizations demonstrated that nonprofits were ideal vehicles and partners for Community Economic Development (CED) long before the term was coined.
However, after the General Assembly withdrew its formidable support of these organizations and groups like the Rural Center, the Association of CDC’s and the North Carolina Community Development Initiative lost the capital to support these CDC’s, the work has slowed to a trickle. But CED may be the renaissance these groups need.
Lessons from the new rules on accounting for tax abatements
July 1 marked the start of a new fiscal year for North Carolina local governments and with that, we began the first fiscal year for which our localities will be subject to Statement 77 from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which is entitled Tax Abatement Disclosures.
Proposed legislation to expand school leasing addresses a real problem, even if some think it’s not the best approach
A flare-up over proposed legislation (Senate Bill 554) to increase school leasing projects highlights a scenario playing out all over North Carolina – counties outside the 40-85 crescent face shifting, or declining, school populations, along with older schools in need of substantial renovation or replacement. The legislation is associated with a proposed program to replace and repair schools across Robeson County at a price tag estimated at $1.4 billion, although it would authorize a financing technique that would be available across the state.