County-Wide Survey Results

Detailed results and citizen comments

• On Citizen Participation

Discussion

An exchange by members of a volunteer interest group highlights the strong belief that members of both survey samples have in the importance of increasing citizen involvement.

Woman: "One thing mentioned before was the suggestion that maybe more than one government include citizens in the future. I think for a long time, citizens relied on the government to do things. There was a time where everybody just thought 'Let the government do it, I'm busy with my life. They can deal with all this stuff.' They weren't involved. Maybe they were involved in PTA, but not the government. And I think now we're trying to turn back to getting people involved again. And there are communities where they're reaching out--trying to get citizens involved in futuring, and planning, and I think that's a strong point we have."

Man: "And I think what Kalamazoo's struggling with right now is that we've always relied on the Upjohns or the-the big industry leaders to take care of the community, or maybe influence things and get things done. But now I think we're seeing a lot of this globalization taking place and I think we all know that a lot of this leadership is disappearing. What we have to do, I think, as citizens is we have to become aware, and become more involved."

Greater Kalamazoo Community Convention Outcomes:

[About the Convention]

Statements agreed upon by 100% of participants:

• We stand for encouraging participation by promoting effective collaborations that maintain the integrity of the individual participants and partners.
• We stand for creating and maintaining quality governments that support our quality of life and our business community.

Strategies for achieving what "we stand for," overwhelmingly supported by participants:

• Use computer technology to develop Internet and get community input regarding area issues: chat rooms, talk with your officials, surveys, "issue of the month", etc.