Shirley Finney has her doubts as she walked into the din of the University of Akron's Rhodes arena.
Shirley Finney: When I first heard about this, I was skeptical.
It's the sentiment of a person who has been to her share of public meetings. She says she's tired of cheerleaders who organize community discussions that go nowhere. Former Clevelander Carolyn Lukensmeyer agrees that it can be very frustrating.
Carolyn Lukensmeyer: If you go to a typical public hearing today, it's all orchestrated. Some PR firm has been hired to decide who speaks and who doesn't speak. Pity the poor citizen that walks in thinking they have a chance to have an influence on what the headline in the newspaper the next day is.
But on this day, Lukensmeyer is one of the orchestrators, in a process that expressly aims to connect the desires of the people with the actions of policy makers. Her Washington-based AmericaSpeaks was hired to supervise the Voices & Choices project, which includes thousands of participants from 16 Northeast Ohio counties. For about a year and a half, area residents have gotten together in person and through on-line surveys to determine the most pressing challenges facing the region.
Greg Balbierz (in the hall): Your turn Tony, and then we're going to move on.
Greg Balbierz guides the discussion at one of 88 tables set-up in the arena. Organizers estimate upwards of 900 people are in attendance. Their task is to rank the importance of six major challenges: public school funding, reducing racial tensions and income inequality, attracting businesses and jobs to the region, reducing the fragmentation caused by some 700 governmental agencies, managing urban sprawl, and training the workforce for current and future jobs. That's a topic of interest to Tony.
Tony: We need to have jobs where people can just go get an internship or go to a ten-week training program, and let me do it. We have people who know how to cook, but you're telling me I have to have a degree first? Put me in the kitchen. Show me what you want me to cook. If I can cook it, let me have the job.
Decisions made at each table are transmitted by laptop to a central group of computer operators, who identify themes and feed them to big video screens at the front of the arena.
Deborah at computer: I think what we're seeing is a goal to link education to workforce needs. Put that in.
Deena at computer: They're talking a lot about vocational training and job training. And maybe that shouldn't be considered separate, it should be considered part of education.
Once the challenges are refined and prioritized, people at the tables are asked to choose between a number of potential solutions that had been suggested by experts in education, business, government, and so forth. For example, Dick likes the idea of the state creating incentives to increase alternative energy use.
Dick: After education, that is going to be one of our long-term really serious concerns about the sustainability of the whole state.
The votes are tallied and transmitted to the screens so that everyone can see the developing areas of consensus. By the end of the afternoon, it's clear that the group's highest priority is to advocate for a change in public school funding. Then comes: investing in internship and mentoring programs to give students the experience needed by local businesses, and increasing state aid for higher education. Shirley Finney says she enjoyed the discussions.
Shirley Finney: Some of these solutions they've come up with, I want to really see them in action. I don't want to see this being wasted as: we come here and we give them our opinion and what we want to see and what we want to do and they're telling us these are "workable" things. I want to see these goals happen.
So, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Voices & Choices organizers say they will take these ideas and create an action plan by the end of the year, and then take that blueprint to the policy makers. Recovering cynics like Shirley Finney will be watching them.
Shirley Finney: I want to see these goals happen within the next two years.
David C. Barnett, 90.3.