Notes from CTTAB Public Engagement Meeting
March 27, 6-7:30 pm
24th floor conference room at Seattle Municipal Tower
Present: Phillip Duggan, Dana Lewis, Prameet Kumar, Sabra Schneider (Staff)
Phillip was selected as Chair of the Public Engagement Committee
Primary public engagement should occur outside of board meetings, ideally in subcommittee meetings or forums and should include:
- Notice given ahead of time about committee meetings
- Summary should posted on the blog about what happened in committee’s and forums
- As simple as posting notes (like this) and should hopefully be up within a week of the meeting
- We should decide what topics we want engagement on so we can promote the topics, not just the committee. For forums we also need to decide:
- Who is the audience
- What information do we want to give and get back?
- How do we make sure we follow good IOAPE practices?
- What are other boards and commissions (BC’s) doing?
Workplan:
- Host 1-2 forums this year.
- Look at other BC’s and see how they’re doing outreach and engagement. Report back.
- Facilitating and helping City Staff with recommendations or best practices around technical tools that can help BC.
Specific recommendations/comments back to the board:
1) We want to use 0365 when the city deploys it later in the year to show video of board meetings
- In the interim we can better promote the “call in” even though we know it’s not ideal
2) The PE committee recommends we encourage public comment at the start of meetings but significant discussion and engagement should occur in committees and forums with the caveat that they are promoted ahead of time, in a public space and that the minutes are posted afterword.
3) Specific interest in a Tech Indicators forum in first two weeks of June. Sabra will check on BKL. PE will reach out to David and CTTAB for volunteers and guidance. Initial thoughts include: panel discussion followed by QA or audience activities and brainstorms.
4) Recommend conversations about public engagement at CTTAB should include: piece of work tasked to PE committee, ensuring PE is included in other projects/committees. Discussions about PE should occur in the during the PE committee.
5) Goals include transparency for meetings and topics, hosting forums, increased feedback and commentary before and after meetings on the blog and in social media.
Additional possible future forum topics:
- Starting point with Uber Lyft controversy and startup Seattle initiative. How do we make Seattle a friendly place for startups, innovation and technology? Possibly partner with Rebecca Lovell
- Broadband forum where we may want to discuss options etc
- Important to remember what we want the outcome to be. Are we educating about our priorities (IE, Tech Indicators) or are we hoping for input before CTTAB takes action?