City council approves $50,000 for next Community
Conversations
Morgan Hill – Hoping to make city government more transparent, the Morgan Hill City Council reaffirmed Wednesday its desire to continue the Community Conversations process and increase the production of the “City Connection” magazine from two to six issues a year.
“We have to get to the point of describing and quantifying our service levels so the public can understand what we’re talking about,” said Morgan Hill Councilman Mark Granz.
The two initiatives will cost $70,000 together and will be added to the city’s 2006-07 budget.
A $50,000 chunk would provide for supplies, materials and limited consulting support for the next phase of the Community Conversations process. Results of the first phase – which included public meetings and a survey of 400 Morgan Hill likely voters – showed that residents are generally pleased with city service levels. Based on this, the council decided not to place a tax measure on the November 2006 ballot, and to keep service levels where they are.
The $50,000 is less than the $110,000 spent on the Community Conversations process used so far this year; $85,000 went to consulting services to structure the program and $25,000 went to communications and supplies.
The other $20,000 will be used to produce the city magazine six times a year.
All council members agreed with the principle of holding more public meetings or community conversations to educate the public and gather input on city business.
There was some discussion of spending money to develop online methods of gathering public input, but Councilman Larry Carr said Internet access could not replace live meetings where residents have the benefit of seeing their elected officials in person.
Morgan Hill resident Chuck Dillmann said he felt participation at public outreach meetings would remain low.
“I wouldn’t hold a lot of hope for a lot of participation,” he said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “This morning at a meeting of over 100 realtors, I said, ‘You guys really need to come tonight because … you’re selling the city.’ “
