St. John’s considers virtual public engagement
With in-person public meetings no longer possible under COVID-19 restrictions, St. John’s is considering conducting public engagement on development applications and other issues virtually.
Between April 13 and April 26, the city sought online feedback on how best to continue with gathering the public’s input on matters during the pandemic.
The city used its engagestjohns.ca website to ask three survey questions and get more open-ended feedback about how best to engage residents during this time. People could also send comments via email.
According to a city news release, 150 people engaged with the site and three emails were received.
Ninety per cent of respondents said the city should continue to engage on projects and initiatives not related to the current public health crisis. Seventy per cent of respondents said they are comfortable using online tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and 63 per cent said they were very likely to participate in city public engagement activities using engagestjohns.ca or other online tools.
However, comments on the website indicated some concerns with online engagement.
“Use the results from any engagement now with extreme caution,” one person wrote.
“Even more than usual responses will be dependent on online access and comfort, and will come from the people with time and energy to spare during the crisis, not a broad range of users.”
Another person wrote that while online access is an obvious choice, “we need to ensure that all residents have an opportunity to participate in engagement opportunities.” This person suggested the city use multiple methods of engagement.
The city news release reiterated this idea: “Most people who participated said they were comfortable participating online using existing or new tools; however, while engagestjohns.ca can be a primary site for information related to the project, it cannot be the only way people participate. It will be important to ensure people can provide input through other means such as email, phone and live virtual events.”
After the regular Monday council meeting, The Telegram asked Mayor Danny Breen if he had suggestions for people who do not frequently use the internet, but might otherwise participate in public meetings.
Breen suggested that email could now be considered a traditional means of engagement.
“I find that people that go to public meetings many times follow up with emails, or send one before the meeting,” Breen said.
“So, still being able to communicate their views by email is important, and certainly we receive a lot of information from residents, whether it’s by email, or by letter, or by phone when we’re dealing with these applications, and with certain other issues that we’re doing public engagement on.
“We can’t replace that ability to go to a public meeting like people like to go to, hear the presentation and have their commentary. So, we did get a very high percentage of people who said that we need to go ahead with the engagement, we need to go ahead and continue on with the business of the city, and using whatever means are available so that people are able to communicate in the way in which they’re most comfortable.”
In a “What We Heard” document about the public engagement, the city said it should allow more time for both promotion and active engagement, try different approaches, and seek feedback throughout and after the engagement process to determine what is working well, and adjust as needed.
Meanwhile, during the April 13 council meeting, the city decided to engage the public on changes it could make to street networks to allow pedestrians to maintain physical distancing during the pandemic without compromising safety.
Potential changes discussed at that time included street reconfiguration, street closures and traffic-calmed boulevards.
However, during Monday’s council meeting, city council unanimously voted to forego public engagement on this matter in order to make the process more expedient. Council decided that city staff will draft ideas to be brought to council for consideration.
It was noted that if the public has suggestions on this, people can still contact their ward councillor.