A recent “Issues Update” from the city outlined the difficulty city staff is having getting participation in the Comprehensive Planning process from certain segments of the community:

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN SURVEY – PRELIMINARY RESULTS. As part of the Comprehensive Plan re-write process, the City made an online survey available to the public in order to help gauge levels of interest and importance for various public services. A copy of the preliminary report was presented in Issues Update last week. The preliminary results were presented to the Planning Commission at their April 16, 2008 meeting. During the presentation, several of the commissioners had questions related to the percentage of response from several areas and groups. Specifically, the response rate from the African-American community was significantly below the relative percentage of Peoria’s population. The response rate from the 1st Council District was also below the proportional population amount. Several steps were taken by City staff to provide direct outreach before the launch of the survey, and in anticipation of difficulty reaching some population groups. Additional outreach efforts were made as the survey results were received.

Some of these outreach efforts included:

• Partnership with the Peoria Public Library to make computers and assistance available to anyone wanting to take the online survey in a library.
• The placement of two of the three “Help Plan Peoria” billboards in areas of the city that were anticipated to have low response rates.
• Direct mailings to all faith based organizations in Peoria, requesting that an encouragement be placed in bulletins or newsletters requesting participation in the survey.
• Direct mailings to all neighborhood associations, neighborhood watch, and business watch groups encouraging them to have their association members participate in the survey.
• Direct outreach to the Black Chamber of Commerce and the African American Contractors Association requesting that they encourage their members to participate.
• The provision of 250 paper surveys with self addressed stamped envelopes to residents of the Southside in response from a community leader in that area.
• A recorded telephone message from the mayor targeted to areas of low response requesting participation in the survey.
• The placement of “Help Plan Peoria” posters on several CityLink buses.
• Placement of ads in the Traveler Newspaper.

Despite all those efforts, survey results show only 58 of the survey takers identified themselves as living in the first district, and only 29 described themselves as African Americans.

This is the second attempt at gaining input from citizens. The first one was through a series of public meetings that were so poorly attended that the City decided to cancel the second round of meetings and instead go with the online survey. The survey saw increased participation, but only from certain groups (including a lot of people who live outside the city). So, getting citizen input appears to have been a bit of a struggle.

The Issues Update went on to say:

Although the online survey has been closed at this point, there is still ample opportunity for participation in the Comprehensive Plan process. A series of Public Hearings will begin at the May Planning Commission meeting, and will continue on a monthly basis through September or October of 2008. At each of these meetings, City staff will present recommendations to the Commission, and the Commission will accept public comment and testimony on the recommendations. Further, any resident can call the Planning Department at 494-8600 with comments related to the Comprehensive Plan and the future of Peoria, or send a comment via email to planning@ci.peoria.il.us A detailed listing of future public meetings related to the Comprehensive Plan will be distributed in a future Issues Update.

What’s surprising to me about this whole process is that no consultant — no city planning expert — was called in to help. Not that I think we need a consultant to do every little thing. But this is no little thing.

Consider that we’ve hired a consultant to do a traffic study for the west bluff. We hired a consultant to develop the Heart of Peoria Plan and write the Land Development Code, both of which covered about 8,000 acres of the city. We hired a consultant to help us with the CSO project. We had Caterpillar come in to provide Six Sigma training. We’re likely going to hire a consultant to do an engineering study for the Kellar Branch rail/trail issue.

But for the City’s Comprehensive Plan — the guiding document that will define our public policy direction on everything from land use to transportation for the whole entire city for the next 20 years — we think we don’t need any outside help for that? We have all the expertise we need in house, even though we evidently don’t have it for any of the other, comparatively smaller things I just listed? If the City can’t figure out a way to engage all the stakeholders and get adequate representation from all parts of the city, how will they be able to put together a comprehensive plan that will address the needs of the whole community?

This plan is too important to be one of the few initiatives on which we try to save money by not hiring an expert to assist us. This isn’t the Developer’s Handbook, it’s the Comprehensive Plan! The future of our City will be guided by this document. It’s imperative that we get this one right.