Citizen group hopes to spark interest in government

LENOX – Government is often looked at as a group that is separated from its citizens.

With that in mind, a group of citizens has spent the last year working to build connections between officials and residents and to show the value of getting more involved in your town.

The culmination of those efforts is an event, named Town Government 101, at the Lenox Library on Thursday, April 11 from 6:30-8 p.m.

“There was a lot of divisiveness in the town after the Kennedy Park events and the community needed to heal,” said Roberta Russell, a member of the group that has been planning the events.

After a series of town dialogues last spring, during the height of the Kennedy Park controversy, a group was organized to see what additional steps the town should take to continue the work of those dialogues.

That new group included Ms. Russell, Debbie Burke, Kathleen McNulty-Vaughan, Peggy Ammendola, Town Manager Gregory Federspiel and Lenox Library Executive Director Sharon Hawkes, who began to plan a larger event.

Ms. Hawkes then created “Lenox Reads,” a project built around Richard Russo’s novel and the HBO film Empire Falls, that would tie in issues that the group felt the town also experienced.

“Sometimes it can be far easier to discuss these kinds of sensitive issues through fiction, and this program could allow us to do just that,” said Ms. Hawkes.

To serve as the “culmination” of the Lenox Reads program and the work of the committee, the idea of a Town Government 101 event was sparked.

“This is the chance to face it head-on and really talk about what everyone needs to get involved; what does the government need to do to welcome people’s involvement?” said Ms. Hawkes. “What do people need to do to step up? It takes both sides.”

The event will send residents, in teams, through a scavenger hunt to learn more about town government. Committees and departments from town government will each have booths around the library and each attendee will be given a question to answer by going through the right channels.

“Let’s say you want to paint your house purple, can you do that, and who do you have to ask?” asked Ms. Burke as she explained the type of questions attendees will be asked.

The event will focus of more general issues, like painting a house, to make sure that hot button issues don’t overpower the educational nature of the event.

“The event will not face those issues directly but more to set the table before those disagreements to insure the conversations are civil,” said Ms. Burke.

All members of the group hone on the fact that this event could serve as a jumping off point for residents to learn about how their government works and how they can be far more involved.

“This is a way to bring us together so that as we can talk to each other, we talk as friends rather than as if we were enemies,” said Ms. Russell. “In order to do that, we need to have practice. So we’re practicing.”

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on April 4, 2013. Filed under Community Events,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry