Welcome to the Utah State Legislature's first-ever On-Line Town Meeting
Click here to submit a comment or question.
If you had attended the town meeting in Vernal in 2006, or in Logan in 2005 you would have witnessed a roomful of people and listened to legislators field questions for an hour or so. You might have written a question or two on a 3X5 card and passed them to the front. The Speaker and the President then assigned the questions to the legislator or legislators best able to answer.
For several reasons, such as a packed itinerary, a plethora of diverse communities, etc., the traditional "brick and mortar" town meeting was impractical this year. We decided to take to the web.
The on-line town meeting replaces 3X5 cards with E-mail, replaces the brick and mortar of an auditorium with whatever surrounds your computer, shrinks geography and tosses the clock out the window.
Welcome to the Town Meeting. We will be here for the duration of the site visit. Maybe a few of us will stay and chat afterwards.
The Process:
We hope so, but this is new ground. We would love to have the benefit of your suggestions and perspective.
If you had attended the town meeting in Vernal in 2006, or in Logan in 2005 you would have witnessed a roomful of people and listened to legislators field questions for an hour or so. You might have written a question or two on a 3X5 card and passed them to the front. The Speaker and the President then assigned the questions to the legislator or legislators best able to answer.For several reasons, such as a packed itinerary, a plethora of diverse communities, etc., the traditional "brick and mortar" town meeting was impractical this year. We decided to take to the web.
The on-line town meeting replaces 3X5 cards with E-mail, replaces the brick and mortar of an auditorium with whatever surrounds your computer, shrinks geography and tosses the clock out the window.
Welcome to the Town Meeting. We will be here for the duration of the site visit. Maybe a few of us will stay and chat afterwards.
The Process:
- You send us your questions and comments. Questions that are specific to site visit communities will be higher priority than questions of a general nature. Partisan hand grenades will not be prioritized at all.
- Leadership will assign the question to the appropriate legislators, or maybe even the legislature as a whole.
- Legislators, scattered across two counties, can use their BlackBerries to E-mail a brief response. If we get crazy, we may even respond by podcast.
- The entire community can read the response right here on the Site Visit Site, and continue the discussion in the comments section below each entry.
We hope so, but this is new ground. We would love to have the benefit of your suggestions and perspective.
4 Comments:
Dear Friends,
In case I don't get my electronic 3x5 card submitted in time, I thought that I would give you all a head start on my question:
With the explosive growth taking place in the South West corner of the Salt Lake Valley, how big of a priority is it to the Legislature to fund a new West Bench stretch of freeway without resorting to the toll road temptation -- which, as you know, is evil?
How about funding new Trax lines throughout the valley? Are they coming sooner than later?
Thank you very much!
A.W.
Good questions A.W., now submit it using the on-line form. That way it gets routed to the right places. Easy as pie.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 14, 2007
LEGISLATURE TO HOLD ON-LINE TOWN MEETING
The Utah State Legislature will host an on-line town meeting in conjunction with the Legislative Site Visit to Davis and Salt Lake Counties.
Residents of Salt Lake and Davis Counties are invited to participate at www.utahsitevisit.com . Those who do not use the internet will be able to phone in their questions and comments by calling 801-326-1677.
President of the Senate John Valentine said, "The logistical hardships of history have always been time and geography. This experiment could move us beyond those challenges. A Bluffdale resident at 3:00 a.m. can participate just as fully as a Sandy or Centerville resident at 7:00 p.m."
Greg Curtis, Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives added, "I hope what we lose in face to face contact will be mitigated by what we gain in inclusiveness and accessibility."
The town meeting will begin Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m. and run throughout the duration of the site visit.
# # #
NOTES:
1. President John Valentine will be available to demonstrate how to submit a question on-line in his office today at 2:30 p.m.
3. Read more about the on-line town meeting experiment at http://utahsitevisit.com/townmeeting/2007/08/welcome-to-on-line-town-meeting.html
The town meeting will officially begin at 9:00 a.m. but Salvador Dali rules the clocks here; we received our first two questions a few hours ago. Both were from Davis County. We've E-mailed them out and will post responses tomorrow.
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