SUBCOMMITTEE FINAL REPORTS TO BE SUBMITTED
Public Awareness and External Affairs Final Report (will be presented on 2/28/07 at JSC General meeting)
(9 pages)
Information Technology Final Report * (will be presented on 2/28/07 at JSC General meeting)
(9 pages) * updated on 2/23/07
posted by Merger Study Web Site Administrator
1 COMMENTS
1 Comments:
The Public Awareness Subcommittee (PASC) has issued its final report. It is published on the merger website and included here for your convenience.
The report fails to address the basic objectives of why the subcommittees were formed: To determine the advantages and disadvantages of merging and to make recommendations. The report does not even contain threads of such discussions. That the PASC would pursue an agenda different from the common charge was not recorded in any of the JSC meeting minutes.
The report states that “The PASC has concluded that a written or telephone survey would not be productive given the scheduling of these additional public meetings being offered in the upcoming months.” Given the report states the ostensible purpose of future public forums is "to now fully answer questions raised by the public" (and not to obtain further public input), the report's response does not answer why the PASC concludes there is no value in garnering additional public opinion after these forums.
It is of note that speakers at the two public forums represented tiny, nonrandom, and likely biased samples of the two populations. Thus, to say “we’re done” leaves the evaluation of public opinion unsettled. In particular, the PASC (JSC) did not measure public opinion sufficiently to facilitate their conjecturing whether voters would accept merging governments but not school districts; rather, the PASC report simply concluded, "it would be a significant challenge in any merger campaign to convince voters otherwise [that merging the Cities and School districts are unrelated issues]."
In addition, through its failure to recommend any action, the report implies the PASC (JSC) is acquiescing to not determining "whether a merger of the two cities would have a positive or negative effect on the respective business communities."
Once more, if the PASC (JSC) was unable to measure public opinion sufficiently to make a recommendation, then recommendation for further opinion gathering is in order.
A merger is possibly the single most important issue the two cities have or will ever face. How can you conclude a study of this magnitude and consequence without having a comprehensive understanding of how the general citizen and business populations feel?
If you have followed reasonably closely the operations of the PASC, you will find individuals who have expended an inordinate amount of personal time in pursuit of doing right by their communities. They are to be applauded for their dedication.
Whether were talking PASC or JSC is semantical. Once again, we've witnessed a process that may have greatly benefited (and could still benefit greatly) from the infusion of outside expertise.
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