Public can help determine city priorities

Residents will get a chance to sound off about what Carson City government should be focusing on during a series of workshops this month.

The six workshops, co-sponsored by the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension and Carson City, are offered at different times and places over the next two weeks to accommodate a variety of schedules.

During the 40-minute sessions, Linda Ritter, who oversees the Operations Scorecard which monitors the city's Strategic Plan, will explain the various services offered by the city, which contribute to a positive quality of life, said JoAnne Skelly, Carson City's extension educator for the extension.

"Attendees will be asked to rate the importance of these services to themselves and our community. They will also be asked whether they feel the city is adequately providing these services," Skelly said. "While the results of this study will be shared with the board of supervisors, individual responses will remain completely confidential."

The scorecard perspectives, which each include a number of objectives, include such things as:

• A safe and secure community

• A healthy community

• A vibrant, diverse and sustainable economy

• A clean and healthy environment

• An active and engaged community

• A physically connected

community

• A community rich in history, culture and the arts

• A community where information is available to all

• Open and accessible government

• Effective resource management

Residents who attend a workshop will be given 30 cards, each listing two objectives, Ritter said. They will be asked to rate each objective in order of its importance to them - for instance, how important is it to them to be safe from criminal activity?

"Then we'll follow up with, 'Do you feel safe?' We've never really asked that kind of question," she said.

Demographics also will be collected, and Ritter hopes to involve at least 200 people.

Performance measures have been used by private businesses for a number of years, but they're fairly new to government, Ritter said, and Carson City is the only community in the state to use them to such a great extent to guide government's operation.

The workshops are being held in advance of a planning workshop with the board of supervisors and city staff scheduled for April 22.

Ritter said clubs and organizations interested in participating in the survey can do so as a group sometime within the next couple of weeks. They may contact her through Skelly.

"I will come to them," she said.

For more information and to reserve a space or schedule a group workshop, contact JoAnne Skelly at skellyj

@unce.unr.edu or 887-2252.