Airway Heights residents who cannot make public meetings but still want to keep up with the various projects happening around the city have a new avenue of doing so.
In a news release, Airway Heights announced it launched its new “Open City Hall” application on its website. Open City Hall gives citizens the opportunity to engage other residents, as well as city staff and officials in a conversation and voice their input and opinion on projects and issues happening throughout Airway Heights.
Peak Democracy, a California-based non-partisan company, developed Open City Hall. According to the company’s website, Open City Hall’s objective is to broaden civic engagement and build public trust in government. More than 100 other government agencies in the United States, Canada and Australia use Open City Hall.
Open City Hall works like any web-based forum. Residents can view the topic and post their position on it. Peak Democracy monitors the forum for disruptive statements that contain personal attacks, profanity, commercial advertising or content that is entirely off-topic. They also watch for users who have falsified their registration information that intend to post multiple statements in one topic or to misrepresent their city of residence.
In addition to engaging residents, staff will collect the feedback on Open City Hall and use it to help guide the city’s decision-making process.
“It’s an incredibly effective way to empower residents to participate in city decisions from the privacy and convenience of their own home,” City Manager Albert Tripp said.
The city is currently asking residents how much of the savings Airway Heights receives from garbage disposal they would support being used toward enhancing public safety services.
Open City Hall is the latest strategy Airway Heights is using to engage residents in participating in city government and voicing what developments and changes they would like to see in the city.
Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].
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