Strategizing engagement with constituents and residents

Let’s revisit the city’s Strategic Plan. Recall, the city recently called for feedback on its drafted Strategic Plan, the plan they will use to prioritize funding for the next five to 10 years to ensure resident needs are being met.

The plan outlines goals for the city based on resident responses to critical quality of life, safety, infrastructure and how the city government interacts with its residents.

A social media blitz, advertisements in the paper and local advocacy netted a grand total of 300 responses in the first round of feedback. Three-hundred responses in a city with a population over 115,000. That is ¼ of 1% of its residents. The city employs approximately 1,300 people. They could have at least paid each of them to weigh in on the priorities they’d like to see in the city they live and serve in.

Now, they are calling for additional feedback. Another round of catchy social media reels and pleas for residents to take five minutes out of their day to fill out a survey on the drafted Strategic Plan that will be adopted in November.

I see both sides of the argument. People are fed up. The crime is out of control and many working for or representing the city just flat-out don’t seem to care. Dismissive is putting it lightly. Especially those with the biggest stage and the loudest voice – my way or the highway and all other perspectives be damned. Why would we assume that taking our time to fill out a survey will add any weight to the staunch response many of us have received thus far?

Then there is the other side. Social media makes complaining so easy. One could easily find feedback for the Strategic Plan if they just view the comments on a critical post regarding the city’s policies on the take-your-pick topic of the day. Themes are common, but the one I find most rampant (next to crime and homelessness being discussed regularly) is general ignorance. Many folks are unaware of city programs on these and other topics, ways to engage your local government, or who even represents them and their associated ability to change things. Meetings go unattended, surveys go unfilled, and your elected leaders are adrift to, at best, do nothing because their constituents are quiet, or at worst, fulfill their own agendas.

My philosophy on the matter mixes both sides. Your elected officials work for you, so hold them accountable. But you, too, must be accountable to ensure what you elected them to do is communicated and queried regularly to ensure compliance. It is a two-way street and so far, social media isn’t cutting it on either end.

Residents are still unsure about what the City is doing on a day-to-day basis to address (or not) those burning questions, and officials are still not heeding resident complaints by meeting them where they are – on social media, in the community, or really anywhere critical feedback is offered. Partisanship has no place in local government post-election season. We all live here, we all have opinions and we won’t agree 100% of the time. But we can all commit to being active participants in our city, communicating and advocating respectfully.

We can all start by reviewing the city’s Strategic Plan draft. The plan and the associated survey are available here (again) until Oct. 10: https://LasCruces.gov/StrategicPlan

Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.