Community Dialogue Committee (Update)

UPDATE

We have gathered feedback from ~350 residents via our survey, emails, 1:1 phone calls and more. The CDWG has assembed all of the feedback, distilled these into a series of common thoughts we call ‘themes’.

We then took these themes are started to iterate on what the city council and other city leaders should do to address them. The resulting recommendations have been reviewed once already with the full city council and others across the city.

All of the work is contained in this file for your reference.

We will be bringing a revised, final report-out to the full city council sometime in June for actions to be taken.

ORIGINAL POST

During the recent NTA strike, it became clear that there needs to be a renewed focus on transparency to the city’s budget, processes, and the roles and responsibilities of key groups within city government, including but not limited to, NPS, the Mayor’s office, School Committee, and City Council.

In response, the City Council is seeking your thoughts and input as to what we should do next. What information should Newton share? How should we share that information? How can we make information easier to find and understand?

Please share your thoughts with us. We have several different options:

• Complete our questionnaire, here to share your experiences during the strike. This questionnaire will also available on paper, at the Clerk’s office (located on the first floor at City Hall)

• Then, consider joining a hybrid session on February 29th at 7PM - either in person or via Zoom using this link.  We are holding what we call a public comment  session at City Hall.  We want to provide increased transparency and improve communications in Newton. To accommodate all those who wish to speak, each speaker will have 3 minutes, and we will get to as many people as we possibly can. We will schedule more of these sessions as needed.