King County community forums on hold due to lack of funding

In 2007, Dick Spady, co-founder and president of Dick’s Drive-In Restaurant, launched the “Easy Citizen Involvement” initiative effort to create a new model for public feedback and discussions on county issues.

February 5, 2012 2:16 pm

In 2007, Dick Spady, co-founder and president of Dick’s Drive-In Restaurant, launched the “Easy Citizen Involvement” initiative effort to create a new model for public feedback and discussions on county issues. That initiative, passed by unanimous vote of the King County Council, created Countywide Community Forums (CCF). The CCF program is overseen by the County Auditor, staffed and run by independent volunteers, uses no taxpayer money and is privately underwritten.

This week John Spady, citizen councilor coordinator and CCF lead, announced that private funding was not available to support CCF in 2012.  As a result, the collaborative program has been placed on hold. The Auditor’s Office plans to use residual funding to conduct an evaluation of the program during 2012.

“The CCF approach to public engagement is unique in the collaboration it created between King County government and the program’s independent coordinators,” said King County Auditor Cheryle Broom. “CCF has worked hard in the past three years to expand public engagement opportunities and gather important feedback from county residents. CCF is recognized as a public engagement model that has broadened participation of county residents. As stated in King County’s strategic plan, meaningful public engagement is a strategic priority for the county.” Spady said, “The past four years have been a time of real growth for CCF. Many exciting things are happening in government and especially in the area of public engagement and open government initiatives. This region continues to incubate innovative government-citizen models,

and no matter what form the county-based CCF program takes in the future, other new strategies for improving our public engagement skills will most certainly emerge.”

In October 2011, CCF set a new program record with 1,440 participants during a round of forums on the county budget with a focus on the Metro Transit budget.  All CCF reports areavailable at CommunityForums.org or on the Auditor’s website at http://kingcounty.gov/operations/auditor/CommunityForums/topics, or by calling toll free at 800-369-2584.

Since 2008, there have been 8 rounds of forums and over 4,500 participants covering such topics as