Q&A
MOERJ's approach to town halls and public forums
0:22:14
ยท
72 sec
Council Member Williams inquires about MOERJ's use of town halls or public forums to engage with average New Yorkers. Commissioner Sherman explains their alternative approaches to community engagement.
- MOERJ doesn't hold traditional town hall meetings but conducts community workshops
- The office hosts neighborhood events through initiatives like Young Men's Initiative and NYC Her Future
- Recent engagement efforts include borough-wide sessions, language-specific workshops, and youth-focused events
Nantasha M. Williams
0:22:14
Does the agency hold any town halls or public forums in order to engage with the every the average everyday New Yorker?
0:22:21
If not, are there any plans to do something of this in the future?
Sideya Sherman
0:22:25
Sure, so we haven't had town hall meetings per se, but we certainly have community workshops tied to community based planning efforts.
0:22:35
And as I shared also, we certainly through particularly through our work with the Young Men's Initiative and NYC Her Future, host a number of neighborhood events where we're able to engage and connect people to resources.
0:22:47
Some of our recent community engagement workshops include work that we've done in The Bronx to engage residents around addressing specific disparities across the borough.
0:22:56
We've hosted borough wide sessions with nonprofit partners and community members.
0:23:01
We've replicated those sessions in Spanish and hosted in language sessions to have hands on workshops, and we've also replicated that to host sessions that specifically were designed for young people that they can engage in the work in a way that made sense for them.
0:23:15
So that certainly you know while we don't have a large community engagement apparatus, we make sure that we're strategic and deliberate in offering and developing opportunities to engage New Yorkers.