Reminder: HR Civic Engagement Summit

Hampton Roads, Local, Politics 1 Minute

Just a reminder that the Hampton Roads Civic Engagement Summit is quickly approaching. It will be held April 4, from 8:30am to 12:30pm at ODU.

If you haven’t registered for this event, please do so.

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One thought on “Reminder: HR Civic Engagement Summit”

  1. Thanks, Vivian. Just now I e-mailed Professor Quentin Kidd, the CNU political scientist who is a chief organizer of this civic engagement event. And since you’re a board member of the civic engagement center, Vivian, I’m grateful for this chance to ask of you what I asked of him.

    Referring to the continuing civic effort to rescue Fort Monroe — a national treasure — from its unfortunate 2005 framing as merely a development plum for Hampton, I said that in my view Hampton Roads needs a genuine, open, back-to-first-principles, public _debate_ about the Fort Monroe opportunity. We have never yet held any such public _debate event_, but if we’re serious about true civic engagement, we ought to.

    Please note that the 2006 Hampton-framed, Hampton-orchestrated “charrettes” did not constitute fair and open discussion. They involved government censorship. That’s a strong charge, but I can back it up.

    That lack of genuine public openness continues to plague the Fort Monroe civic discussion. The Fort Monroe planning is a classic example of back-room people making decisions and then presenting them as if the public believed in them — exactly the sort of problem that tomorrow’s summit aspires to begin to fix.

    In Hampton Roads, if we’re serious about civic engagement, we need to hold that Fort Monroe debate. Those of us who advocate a Grand Public Place need to be held accountable. And officials who are preparing, in defiance of public opinion, to give us a McFort Monroe rather than a Grand Public Place need to be held accountable too.

    As someone who has devoted considerable time to civic engagement concerning Fort Monroe, I’d love the chance to debate those officials openly and in a fair forum with time to air all of the issues and to follow up concerning complexities.

    I hope that such an event grows out of whatever happens tomorrow in Suffolk. Issues of roads, bridges, taxes and so on come and go over the decades, but Fort Monroe is a national treasure with international significance that will last for a thousand years — if we citizens stand up and replace a narrow, parochial vision with a strategic one.

    Thanks very much.

    Steven T. Corneliussen
    Citizens for a (self-sustaining) Fort Monroe National Park

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