Share feedback on Eugene strategic plan by July 31

Presenter: The city of Eugene is asking all residents to help guide the city’s strategic plan—by the end of the month.  At the July 22 meeting of the Neighborhood Leaders Council, Neighborhood and Community Liaison Cindy Koehler:

Cindy Koehler (Eugene, Office of Equity and Community Engagement): The community survey: It’s really important that we get a robust turnout on the community survey and I know it takes 10, maybe even 15 minutes to fill out. There’s a lot of information we’re asking for.

[00:00:29] Again, that’s the information that we use to inform the city’s strategic plan moving forward: How are we doing? Are we meeting the goals listed in the current strategic plan? Is there something that can be better?

[00:00:41] Really, we would love to have your feedback, your entire board’s feedback, and then the members in your neighborhood associations.

[00:00:48] Neighborhood leader: Cindy, what makes this survey different from all the other 14,000 surveys?

[00:00:54] Cindy Koehler: I am so glad you asked that. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We get that question every time.

[00:01:01] All the city surveys are called what? Community surveys. All of them. So this one is more comprehensive on the city’s strategic plan. What are we doing? Are we meeting the goals in the plan?

[00:01:15] It’s a little more robust. It will be shared with the entire organization. The results will be shared with the entire organization.

[00:01:22] So the goal is—and we’re working with all the departments right now—is to have a more streamlined approach for our surveys so that you don’t get four community surveys in one month. And you don’t get repeat questions on the surveys that you’re taking.

[00:01:41] Presenter: NLC co-Chair Jensina Hawkins:

[00:01:43] Jensina Hawkins: So is this one survey to rule them all?

[00:01:47] Cindy Koehler: It’s one survey that helps guide the entire city’s plan, how we do our work. So that’s what this one is. Parks & Open Space, they’ll have a survey that’s directly related to their work in parks. Recreation may have a survey related to recreation. Library, for library services. So this is the entire city.

[00:02:06] Presenter: Cindy also recommended signing up for her group’s e-newsletter.

[00:02:10] Cindy Koehler: I wanted to make sure that everyone receives a sign-up for the community bulletin that goes out twice a month that Julian does.

He does a really amazing job on that e-newsletter. It goes out to, I want to say, 700 or 800 people? And it’s not just neighborhood associations, but people who are interested in human rights, in the neighborhoods program, and in any of the community engagement work we do. So it’s a really great newsletter.

[00:02:37] Please check our calendar to make sure your events are on there so that we can make sure that we have staff available to come.

[00:02:44] When you submit an application to Parks and Open Spaces to reserve space in a park for your ice cream socials or your summer events or the movies in the park or whatever it is you’re doing, I do receive a copy of that from Parks and Open Space so I do get them on the calendar from there.

[00:03:02] But we also would like to hear from you a little more details on your events, so please check that calendar. We want your board meetings, your general meetings and your events, and if you want to include your subcommittees, that would be great as well.

[00:03:19] Presenter: With budgets tight, the city is linking funding to a neighborhood work plan. They’re now asking neighborhoods to share their objectives for the year. Cindy Koehler:

[00:03:30] Cindy Koehler: We’ve already received a couple of work plans from the neighborhood associations. And some other neighborhood associations find the task a little bit daunting. What should we ask for? What should we look for? What is it you want to see or hear?

[00:03:43] So we created a pretty basic template. It’s in a (Microsoft) Word document. I also have it in an Excel spreadsheet if that’s your preference. And then I also have an online form that’s on our website that’s not linked to any pages. If you want to fill out that form, I can send you the link to the form as well. It’s whatever works best for you.

[00:04:03] I will say with the form online, Civic Plus is the format we use for our website. It doesn’t allow you to save the form and then go back and complete it later, which is kind of a bummer.

[00:04:14] So it might, if you wanted to use the online form, it would behoove you to take that (Microsoft) Word document, print it out, and use that to fill in the blanks, and then go and use that (online) form. It’s again, whatever works best for you.

[00:04:29] I would encourage you to take a look at that form though because that’s kind of basically the information we’re looking for.

[00:04:35] Presenter: Eugene residents are encouraged to fill out the community survey relating to the city’s strategic plan. It’s available through the end of July.