The City of Norfolk is holding a community outreach meeting this coming Tuesday, July 26th. According to the press release:
In 1996, Norfolk City Council established the vision of Norfolk based upon the following priorities: community building; education; public accountability; public safety; regional partnerships; economic development.
City Council is reviewing the priorities and vision for Norfolk. Now your input is needed to help us update the priorities and community goals for a well-managed Norfolk.
Tuesday, July 26, 6:30 pm
Norfolk Police Department – 3rd Patrol Division
901 Asbury Ave.Call 757-664-4266 for more information
This is your opportunity to participate. Hope to see you there!
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I wonder why they put on these meetings when they don’t act on the suggestions. The council continues to do whatever they want and not respect the wishes of the community. It is so frustrating!
Well. perhaps our involvement will result in the doing so. After all, we do have a few new council members 😉
I’m confused…we are residents of Norfolk and never heard of this meeting. Why? How did you hear about it? thx for the heads-up!
I saw it first on the City’s Facebook page. I think they sent something out to the civic league presidents but no offense to those fine folks, not all of them put info out on a timely basis so that the citizens can participate. And I keep the city’s news feed in my sidebar so that I can see stuff like this as it comes out.
I recently participated in a similar type of community engagement in Hampton. The process had gone on a couple times before and several people had the same feelings as Charlene Christopher , that it was a waste of time and council did not listen anyway. This time however, many people told me their feelings were completely different. The city even meet with representatives picked by the individual community groups. They meet with the planning commission and city council. They talked about how the people could stay involved and help their recommendations become reality. They had a very realistic talk about funding and the city can’t pay for everything and there were quite a few out of the box solutions to some of the problems. Every one involved participating citizens, planning commission, and city council seemed to be very encouraged and very hopeful on the result. I hope that Norfolk does the same thing and that this is not for show. Because when a citizen feels like it was a waste of time and it was for show they are unlikely to be involved again or trust and future council.
I hope it is not lip service, too, but not encouraged by the lack of notice to residents, like me. 😦 Dislike
I saw this pop up and was disappointed that there was not more notice – esp written notice, not just Facebook and post on the city’s website. I called a friend without internet and he was unaware of the meeting even though he follows city things closely. I cannot make it, but would like to.
Where is the on-line comment form with some framing on what this effort is supposed to do – does anyone know? The doc on the city website is a simple .pdf without any indication of who is calling this meeting or for what broader purpose it is being held.
The “body language” on this effort is one of simply checking the public outreach box, rather than looking for true civic engagement.