NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. —Dozens of people showed up to the community engagement meeting with the City of Hutchinson held at Stringer Fine Arts Center on Tuesday evening, July 30.
"We're pretty excited," said City of Hutchinson Director of Strategic Growth Dave Sotelo. "With things like this, you never really know what to expect. I'm pretty pleased with the turnout and the work that the staff did to get this project going. It's been something we've been thinking about for a while and finally bringing it to fruition, something we've continued to do for a while. We really care about engaging people, and I think, you know, one of the big challenges we face is creating more trust with the folks who live in Hutchinson and call Hutchinson home, and so this is just one tool that we can do that to try to engage them more."
Sotelo said the challenge will be making sure that the city actually listens to what people have to say.
"People are really hungry for more avenues to communicate and connect with people, with their elected officials and city officials, so I think that's one thing," Sotelo said. "The other part of this is that, you know, when you think about a town hall meeting, you think about boring speeches from politicians and city officials, and you think about one person complaining about, oh, there's too many stray dogs in our community, and they spend 45 minutes talking about that. What we want to do is that every voice, through a sticky note, has the same level of value, right? So we're really trying to add some democracy here to kind of what people have to say, which is something I really care about. I have nightmares about people talking for 45 minutes at a community meeting. That's not what we want here. We want, you know, people to really engage with us through this method."
The intent is to have more of these meetings in the coming months and to move them around the city.
"We're listening to people about what works and what doesn't work, and so our hope is to try and maybe there are different times that might work for people," Sotelo said. "HCC is a good central first time, but we're thinking about moving it around according to the districts that people live in and that are represented by the different council members, and so, yeah, we want to think about how do we, the best we can, meet people where they are, and so moving it through schools or places where people already meet, I think that's really essential going forward."
All city department heads were present and each had a role in talking to community members about their concerns. There were more sticky notes on the sheets posted around the room than the city typically gets public input speakers in months for a regular council meeting.
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