The Milwaukie Citizens Jury on City Council Compensation will now take place Sat, Nov. 9 to Tues., Nov. 12, 2019.
As detailed in a previous press release, we postponed the Citizens Jury to the fall due to a low response rate and a resulting lack of demographic diversity in our response pool. The inherent legitimacy of Citizens Juries depends on seating a microcosm of the public, so it was vital that we achieve a panel reflective of the general public before we moved forward with the project.
We heard feedback from several sources that two full weekends was a big ask, so we have rescheduled the Citizens Jury for our more typical format: four straight days. In this case, the CJ will stretch over Veterans Day weekend to maximize potential availability for students or others who may have the holiday off. All other details about the event will remain the same as previously reported (see below).
The 5,000 Milwaukie residents who previously received a mailing from us will receive another notification by mail, and all who have responded so far have been contacted individually. We will conduct our final selection of citizen panelists in mid-September.
An update to our earlier press release, with full details on the Citizens Jury process follows.
A panel of 20 Milwaukie residents will participate in a ground-breaking democratic exercise – as members of Oregon’s first-ever local government Citizens Jury. This Citizens Jury will be selected in September at a public meeting at Milwaukie City Hall.
Local government Citizens Juries are common in Canada and Australia, but are rare in the United States. They bring together groups of everyday people to study and deliberate on solutions to important policy issues. They are randomly selected from the general public, through a process that results in a panel demographically reflective of the overall population – in terms of age, gender, race/ethnicity, political party, and other factors.
The Milwaukie Citizens Jury will consider the question: “Should Milwaukie City Council members and the Mayor be paid more than their current volunteer stipends? If so, how much should they be paid?” Panelists will question a range of issue experts, deliberate on the evidence, evaluate alternatives, and provide a recommendation to the City Council.
Citizens Juries follow a detailed format to ensure fairness, objectivity, and productivity. The Milwaukie Citizens Jury will take place Nov. 9-12 at Clackamas Community College’s Harmony Campus, and will be open to the public.
Last month, 5,000 randomly selected Milwaukie households received a mailing inviting them to add their names to the pool of potential Citizens Jury panelists. The final panel of 20 Milwaukie residents will be selected at a public event from among the respondents to this mailing. This selection event will also be open to the public and take place in mid-September (exact date TBA). The public is invited to attend to learn more about the Citizens Jury and observe the panelist selection process.
This project is a partnership between the City of Milwaukie and Healthy Democracy, an Oregon-based nonpartisan nonprofit. It is fully funded by a grant from the Oregon-based Carol & Velma Saling Foundation. Healthy Democracy is best known for developing the Citizens’ Initiative Review, which brings randomly selected voters together to evaluate ballot measures and write better quality voter information.
For more information on Citizens Juries, please visit healthydemocracy.org/cj.
Other questions? Please contact us at info@healthydemocracy.org or (503) 841-6865.
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