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Thursday, November 3, 2011

City Hall Calendar

Oh, the good old days, when things were simple...

For the 3 years that I have been extremely active in local politics, I stayed informed of city meetings by looking at the city's web site calendar at least once a week.  It was bookmarked, I went right to it, and in 5 seconds, i knew what meetings were coming up.

Now we have a new web site, well not so new, it's been in production since July 1.  I was excited to see the "Notify Me" feature, perfect, I'll sign up to be notified of public meetings and I won't have to stalk the calendar page.  That hope was dashed when I received an email of a special meeting 20 minutes AFTER it had finished.  I've talked to the Clerk, IT Dir, and Law Director, I expressed concern for compliance with Ohio Sunshine Laws (see links on http://BetterSolon.org/ ).

Back to the old way, I'm subscribed to the new Notify Me feature, can't depend on it, so its back to looking at the Calendar, but now its not so simple since it contains over 50 senior events.

I thought that backup process was going to work until tonight when I saw no regular safety meeting scheduled for November, odd since I remember a specific discussion in caucus (off camera) that the meeting was to be rescheduled.  So I asked another committee member, and he confirmed that the Safety Meeting was rescheduled to Nov 16, but it wasn't on the calendar.  Another person said "Yes it is!" I looked at my iPad again and showed him, "its not here!" He ran to the clerks office and came back with a printed paper calendar that showed the Safety meeting on the 16th.

But IT DID NOT show the special safety meeting on the 7th that WAS on the web site.

SO NOW in these new days, to stay informed, I need to look in THREE places (paper, online, notify), rather than one (online).

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Master Plan Nov 1

Reviewed the 2001 Community Attitude Survey and suggested changes...

The county reformatted the 2001 survey, updating it for mark sense technology (bubbles instead of boxes). It was suggested to review questions, if the answer won't help the MasterPlan then consider removing the question. It was also suggested that current responses could be compared to the 2001 if the question format remains similar.

The Survey will relate to the SWOT (blog and minutes) and Goals (draft minutes, final minutes).

Question 1 removed.

There was some discussion about the city services question for items that aren't  completely city services (Schools, Library, Cultural). It was decided to move Cultural issues out of this question.

Remove mention of cleaning and maintaining sidewalks from question 2 as Jim Stanek has proposed that this really isn't a city responsibility.  Many people there were not aware of this policy shift introduced at the Public Works committee.  However it was left into question 3 because people "may want it". No explanation of how this issue is being discussed will be included, so its likely they won't understand it either.

Question 10 will be moved to after Question 4.
Cultural questions may occur after this question.

It was raised that the schools are the number 1 city asset, how should they be included here?  Some thought the schools should NOT be included, they have their own strategic process.  It was suggested that a question on city/school collaboration or how well they work together would be useful.  It was suggested that the admin talk to the schools about the survey.

Question 5 (shopping) remove the both in/out column and add an internet shopping column.  Discussion on whether to delete or keep question 6.

Question 9, top 5 only.

Delete questions 11, 12, 15.  Keep 13 & 14 (RTA)

Combine question 18 & 19.

Orange had questions about online access.  Suggested to ask Internet value of services & access to community services.

Add a question about people's leisure activities.


CHECK BACK, MORE INFO COMING...

Next Meeting - Thur Nov 17
Agenda: Meeting with County on Community Attitudes Survey
The Mayor and Council will be asked for input
The next draft will be prepared and discussed on the 17th and finalized

Minutes are here.