REMARKS
Importance of early community outreach in the commission's process
1:07:39
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174 sec
Professor Lane emphasizes the importance of early community outreach in the commission's process, drawing from his experience with the 1989 Charter Revision Commission.
- Recommends holding hearings in every borough before formulating ideas
- Highlights the success of this approach in building trust with communities
- Discusses the importance of having translators and sign language interpreters available at meetings
- Emphasizes that offering translations and interpretations helps create trust in the commission's efforts to reach people
Professor Eric Lane
1:07:39
So I wanna stress something by Susan.
1:07:42
So I thought that we we held one hearing in every borough before we even enter obtained an idea to tell the communities who we were or maybe we needed more.
1:07:53
Who we were, what our task was, and to invite to invite ideas that they might have.
1:08:02
To learn from the community.
1:08:03
And I thought that was eminently successful and made for a much smoother path of trusting us as we proceeded.
1:08:12
So I think that I think, Susan, to refer to it, maybe then, and I thought that was a very valuable exercise to do before we even came up with an ID.
1:08:23
Right?
1:08:23
Okay.
Lincoln Restler
1:08:24
Seeking question on the the meetings before to hear from everybody to solicit their ideas at the beginning.
1:08:30
Then to do the round at the end, after you actually have your issues or your questions, to see the solicit feedback on that too, you know, it's important I'll get into that.
1:08:39
Sorry.
1:08:39
But, you know And
Professor Eric Lane
1:08:40
then on on the translation thing, I we were we had a hearing and all of a sudden.
1:08:47
I mean, we probably had eighty people around living at night, and all of a sudden this whole group about twenty people stood up And they were all had hearing problems, and they were demanding that we had a a signer.
1:09:06
Mhmm.
1:09:07
And when you have a signer, you have to have 2 signers because I think you can work 2 hour shifts as with all translators.
1:09:15
And so at the beginning of every meeting, we'd have to sign up the signer would get up and sign and, you know, if anybody did help, we were they were here to do it, and then they would sit down Unfortunately, unfortunately, I don't know which the answer to that is, and it's probably not very hard to make them.
1:09:34
Nevertheless, every time they did it, I don't think we had a problem.
1:09:39
Ever again.
1:09:40
I don't think anybody in need of this song ever again even though we had one before probably another 30 meetings.
1:09:45
But the point I'm making about it is not having translators available.
1:09:50
It creates a political issue in and of itself disconnected from whether their people are gonna weigh in on the issues or not.
1:09:58
People want the opportunity to include it.
1:10:02
We actually printed stuff in Chinese, Spanish, both Mandarin and you forget the name of the other, the more pocket, the more used dialect.
1:10:11
And, you know, everything was translated into multiple things.
1:10:15
And I think that also helped to really create trust in the commission's efforts to reach people.
1:10:23
So I thought I think I wanna I'm just emphasizing Susan's ideas here as really workable and solid and useful.
1:10:32
Okay.
1:10:32
I'm done.
1:10:33
Sorry.
Ben Weinberg
1:10:33
No.
