MOORE, Okla.- Inside a room full of citizens Monday, the City of Moore took another step toward disaster recovery. The community meeting made citizen engagement a priority as it worked hands-on with residents to determine what improvements they would like to see in the areas hardest hit by the May 20, 2013 tornado.
“I think that we are off to a really great start. We have had a great response from the community,” said consultant engineer Jason Cotton. “Each and every person that was at the meeting was touched by the storm in one way or another. Either they were there when it happened, or it went through their neighborhood. So it was interesting to hear how the storm impacted where they live and how they want to see their neighborhood built back better.”
Jason Cotton is the consultant engineer working to develop Moore’s recovery plan. Monday he updated citizens about what has been done to date, and looked on as citizens and city staff members gathered around tables working through concerns and ideas that are at the forefront of their minds.
“Their main concerns included traffic moving too quickly in the neighborhood. Everyone seemed very concerned about their safety, their children’s safety with the traffic flow,” said Director of Community Elizabeth Jones. “They were also really interested in sidewalks, trails and landscaping.”
Jones said this feedback from residents is essential for the city to properly determine the usage of its disaster recovery funding. Now the engineers will take that citizen input and sketch visuals of the changes to give residents a snapshot of what they can expect.
“There are so many little conversations that go on during this process, and it is really hard to capture each one of those little conversations and make sure they don’t get lost,” said Cotton. “So this web platform is really a way for us to do that.”
This new online forum for citizen feedback can be found at envisionmoore.org.
“Envisionmoore.org is going to give people the option to talk in forums, leave a comment, and take a survey,” said Jones. “Really it is just a way of idea sharing and leaving their comments for city staff to collect, analyze and incorporate into city plans.”
The website is a new tool that the city hopes residents will utilize. And both Jones and Cotton said continuing these conversations about the needs and desires of the community will be the key to this project’s success.
“The success of the project is a function of how involved the community is,” said Cotton. “The city has a great opportunity here to make Moore better than it was before. How successful this project is determined by how involved people will be and how much initiative and ownership they will take of their city and get involved in the process.” -
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City of Moore Launches New Website for Citizen Feedback
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