Participation Guidelines
The City of Flagstaff (the “City”) has partnered with OpenGov, a third-party online forum provider, to create a civic engagement platform that will allow the citizens of Flagstaff get more involved in City government. Flagstaff Community Forum is a forum for the discussion of proposed City projects and upcoming policy topics related to local government in the City and its partner agencies. The topics are generated by City staff, commissions, and Council for the purpose of public participation in current government decision making.
To ensure that all voices are heard and that forum participants are able to speak freely about the posted topics, participants who register to use the forum must agree to not post disruptive statements. Disruptive statements include the following:
- Statements that do not relate to the posted topic;
- Personal attacks and statements that threaten or abuse other forum participants, members of the public, City staff or City officials;
- Statements that discriminate on the basis of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual preference, age, region, disability, etc.
- Hate speech of any kind;
- Statements containing any sort of commercial advertising or soliciting funds, goods, or services;
- Repetitive or meaningless messages (“spam”);
- A statement from a user who has falsified their registration information with the intent to post multiple statements in one topic or to misrepresent their city of residence; and
- Statements that include obscene, pornographic, abusive, or otherwise illegal material.
OpenGov, acting as the forum monitor, will remove any disruptive statements that are posted on the forum. Forum participants who post disruptive statements may lose their posting privileges.
Frequently asked questions about the participation guidelines
Why does Open Town Hall monitor for disruptive statements?
OpenGov is a non-partisan company dedicated to building public trust in government and broadening civic engagement. Many people will not participate, if the forum has disruptive statements.
Does Open Town Hall find many disruptive statements?
No. Disruptive statements are quite rare - less than one in a thousand statements on OpenGov moderated topics nationwide are disruptive.
What does Open Town Hall do if they find a disruptive statement?
OpenGov
- moves the statement to a different web page,
- describes the problem in an email to the author, and
- invites the author to change the statement.
Does Open Town Hall ever edit or delete statements?
Never. Only the statement's author can edit or delete a statement. If a statement is removed from the public website, it will still be seen by the City of Flagstaff and be part of the public record.
If I disagree with someone, can I post my opinion?
Yes. Open Town Hall encourages open dialog and debate which, by necessity, includes disagreements.
How do I know if my statement is a 'disagreement' or a 'personal attack'?
Personal attacks are disparaging remarks which impute motives to a person's action. Statements of fact, or of your own opinion are generally not personal attacks.
Here are some examples of statements which are, and are not, personal attacks.
Personal Attack v. Not A Personal Attack
He is a liar. V. He said he did X, but in fact he did Y.
She misrepresented the truth. V. I don't believe what she said.
He is greedy. V. He is making money from this project.
It is merely a power play on her part. V. She will announce her candidacy soon.
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Please indicate your level of agreement with the Cleaner Electricity target area.
Please indicate your level of agreement with the Fuel Switching target area.
Please indicate your level of agreement with the Reducing Building Energy Demand target area.
Please indicate your level of agreement with the Transportation Shift target area.
Please indicate your level of agreement with the Electric Mobility target area.
Please indicate your level of agreement with the Improved Materials Management and Landfill Operations target area.
Please indicate your level of agreement with the carbon sequestration strategy.
Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions caused by our transportation sector is critical to carbon neutrality. We'll need to decide which modes of travel to prioritize. Which path would you choose?
While carbon neutrality will benefit Flagstaff and create a stronger community, change can sometimes be disruptive. We have a choice: lead with bold action and make transformative changes, or make more changes behind the scenes and rely more on carbon sequestration. Which option would you choose?
Please indicate your level of agreement with the direction we are heading in our carbon neutrality work.
Do you have more to share? Use this space to provide additional comments or feedback on the direction of our work.
Government regulation has never solved a problem in the history of humankind. What saddens me about this is I feel as a council you don’t really care what the citizens opinions are. You have made the decision for the rest of us already and this is just checking a box of “public input.” You want to turn every vehicle electric. Where do batteries come from? Lithium. A terribly destructive process to the environment. But maybe you think it’s ok because it won’t be our environment here in Flagstaff. Someone else’s problem to worry about because we will feel better about our neutrality. Have you ever thought about the community that wants a cleaner environment because of how destructive lithium mining is, but they can’t get it because you and the feds want to shell out billions of dollars to mining companies and manufacturers so you can feel good about your Tesla? You think you can force 12,500 homes and hundreds of businesses to convert from gas to electric? How? Force me to pay more money to retrofit my home? Spend limited general fund taxes on doing it for me? Ban stores from selling gas using appliances and force to buy electric? A basic starter home is now selling for more than $450,000 in Flagstaff. Don’t you think construction costs will increase by adding additional regulations on energy efficiency, building materials, or increased codes? All of those 3 are Nobel goals but they don’t happen through overreaching regulation. Solar panels would be a great supplement for standard electricity use. But I can’t afford them. Again because I live in Flagstaff where the cost living is being californized daily. And talking about carbon sequestration... are you kidding me? Trying to threaten me with the high costs of that versus your other “aggressive” options is completely laughable. I’m not 5 years old. Cleaning up the landfill is a great a idea. Stop supplementing a recycling plant that is a private business when they can’t recycle anything is a great idea. Stop sending the recycle police around to look in my recycle bin would save money. Those little oops tags aren’t free. Eliminating the entire sustainability department could free up a lot of funds for you to tackle these projects. Figuring out a way to increase solar use as a SUPPLEMENT is a great idea. Beyond that stop overreaching and wasting limited tax dollars. That’s a finite resource. But I guess in the end if you make it impossible for anyone to live here then you’ll accomplish your asinine goal and you and the bums will be carbon neutral when we move away. Hopefully you’ve read this far and I’ll just ask you to think about this, are you really looking for input or do you simply want validation for your predetermined feel good, poorly constructed, pat yourself on the back plan?