The first recipient of a CSC "Common Sense Grant", Threshold 2008 began the first of a 3-stage process to engage the citizens of San Mateo County in a conversation about affordable housing.  This first stage was a Deliberative Poll, conducted by Dr. Jim Fishkin of Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy. CSC played a role in connecting Fishkin with the coordinators of Threshold, and, as mentioned, is supporting the effort financially. The next stage of the campaign will be an "Online Dialogue", which will be conducted later this month.

 

Visit Threshold 2008, and, if you live in San Mateo County, learn about ways you can participate.

Consulting on Citizen Engagement 

CSC's City/Regional Task Force Meets to Discuss Grant Program

The Common Sense California City/Regional Task Force met in Cupertino to discuss criteria for CSC's "Catalyst Grant" program and to talk about other ways CSC can assist California's cities and regional governments in promoting citizen engagement. The group, which is comprised of City Managers and regional governance leaders from around the state agreed on a basic set of determining factors for the grants and developed an initial action plan for marketing these grants.Find out more about the CSC's new City/Regional Task Force

CSC's Executive Director, Pete Peterson, and Task Force Co-Chair, Ed Everett facilitated a morning conference on citizen engagement and community development in Oakland for the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  Ed began the morning with a discussion about community development and its foundational role in any effective engagement process. Pete then highlighted the elements that are essential to any "legitimate" engagement campaign using some recent case studies.  Find out more about the conference

Promoting Citizen Engagement:

CSC in the News 

February 28, 2008: Pete Peterson writes on civic participation in Ventura County Star

 

February 23, 2008: Pete Peterson writes about political polarization in Santa Barbara's Noozhawk online newspaper

 

January 6, 2008: Co-chair David Davenport writes article on citizen engagement in San Francisco Chronicle 

 

January, 2008: Co-chair David Davenport publishes article on citizen engagement in Hoover Digest