Posted on March 3, 2008 by meckconnect
Mecklenburg County, NC, is a dynamic and ever-changing community. Your county government is constantly looking for new ways to engage its citizens in friendly, open discussions in more ways than just the typical avenues such as public meetings and hearings. Our official county
Web site already provides you with a wide array of information and online services, but we wanted to try a new approach to communication: The MecklenBlog. We’ll select various county services and events of interest and present them to you here in an informal fashion in hopes that we’ll spur a little open discussion. You may comment any way you wish, or propose a new topic or question any time. We look forward to hearing from you!
To begin, we have a few questions that will help us get a better idea of who you are, and what you’re interested in. Please take a few minutes to answer some or all of the following questions :
1. Think about a time you’ve been involved in the community. Take a moment to talk about why you got involved in that issue.
2. Can you think of a time when you didn’t help or get involved in an issue?
3. What does it take to be a good member of a community?
4. When I say “local government,” what comes to mind?
5. What are the responsibilities of good local government?
6. How can government get you more involved?
7. How involved are you in local government?
8. If a creek in your backyard got dirty, what would you do?
9. How involved do you think you are in community and government?
10. Are you satisfied with your role in community and government?
11. What can local government do to make it more likely you would be involved?
Thanks. You may answer anonymously if you wish, but all anonymous posts and first-time posters will be moderated.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I think a good member of a community is someone who watches out for the interests of others, and tries to help people who need help. I don’t see much emphasis or effort made by local government to foster this between people. Mostly, governments are set up to have people have government agencies help them, rather than putting in place ways for people to help each other. I know this is a generalization and there are exceptions, but I still think this is accurate.
Thanks for your input.
1) My involvement includes 15 years of neighborhood association work. I got involved to plead for protection and fairness of my neighbors and my self.
I served on the environmental commitee for 18 months.
2) The many times I leaped in my biggest road block was people failing to see the larger picture due to a lack of infomation.
3) In this community the best members volunteer.
4) Local government refers to Char/Meck and how it relates to Raliegh.
5) Our city council and county commissioners are responsible for making an overall plan of growth in building, water, schools, and transportation.
6) The first change woulod be to abolish county commissioners altogether and consolidate all government services. It is time for one body to plan and for all the departments thereof to interface their moves and juristdictions.
7) I am currently under siege by the charlotte public works and utilities.
9) Involved to the point of screaming to be heard.
10) I would like to be better connected so that a better stream of information could be delivered thru all the neighborhood associations.
11) The might first change the 311 system to include individual phone #’s for each department. There is literally no way to reach any department individually at this time.
I noticed that the general comment was answered in 4 minutes, and the specific comments (someone who is more familiar with what goes on in this town) has been ignored for almost two weeks. Good local govornment is accountable.
Sorry you didn’t get a reply to your post. We’re experimenting with how to use and manage weblogs, so obviously one learning we’ve gained already is that we need to be more timely in responding. We appreciate you providing the responses to these questions. Really, you are the only person who has taken the time to address each question, so we’re wondering if there are too many questions…making it unappealing for people to comment. Again, sorry you didn’t get a response until now.
Regarding #11 in the Mark Sprinkle post on March 5, every City and County department is individually listed in the blue pages of the phone book, and all can be reached through the City-County web site http://www.charmeck.org. More simply though, rather than fumbling around the phone book or surfing multiple web pages, just dial 311 and they will connect you with one transfer. The statement “there is literally no way to reach any department individually at this time” is literally incorrect.
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