re: efficiency

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

Joe,

I won't be at the meeting or making up a handout. It's insulting to
infer that anyone in our group is against "public, open, educational
and consensus-driven group process" as you do below

During our 2nd meeting, because 20 of the 26 attending had been at the
1st meeting, and because we were playing catch-up with the County
which was about to award a contract to an unsatisfactory vendor, I was
trying to get us down to essential business quickly.

Evan

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, joe pezzillo wrote:

> [Sorry, forgot the rest of the list on my reply, and another though on
> the topic occurred to me:]
>
> Original:
> I think that's a great idea. Evan, can you please make up the handout
> from what's on the site? Thanks! -Joe
>
> Amended:
> On additional thought, however, we have agreed to do a public forum in
> conjunction with other groups' efforts, and, as usual, we expect a lot
> of first time attendees. Despite the repeated multiple oppositions I
> keep hearing, we're (or at least I am) committed to making this a
> public, open, educational and consensus-driven group process. That
> means meetings where anyone who wants to gets a chance to talk about
> the relevant issues, the group mutually works to define its mission
> (ie, "the statement"), and everyone is treated as "equals in concern"
> despite the varying level of knowledge that any given individual may
> have on the topic.
>
> So, another idea is to suggest that people who already consider
> themselves experts on the topic not show up until after the public
> meeting portion is done, say the first half hour to hour. If you
> already know that you're not going to learn anything during the public
> education portion, come later. This will also make ample room for what
> will hopefully be a much larger audience than last time (almost 50) of
> total newcomers who have bits and pieces of the story and want to learn
> as much as possible about the issue.
>
> Sorry if this democratic process is a drag to anyone! To me, this group
> -- lengthy meetings, ranting emails, the increasing time commitment and
> all -- is democracy in action. From my perspective, I can be less
> worried about who is in office if we have an truly active and engaged
> citizenry, and I think we're all lookin' at it blooming!
>