A discussion on Committee Previews as a new style of public input meeting

This Thursday, February 20th, the Public Input Subcommittee will hear a presentation from Tori Cruz-Falk, legislative aide to Vice Mayor Dan Wu on the idea of Committee Preview meetings as a new way for Council to engage with the public on local issues.

Last year, CivicLex proposed two ideas for meeting types that Council could host in Lexington specifically for public input.

• The first idea was a Civic Expo, a drop-in meeting that would consist of Councilmembers and LFUCG Divisions and Departments that engage with an item/issue tabling for a set amount of time at an accessible venue.
  • Council hosted a Transportation Expo modeled after this idea in October 2024.
• The second idea was Committee Preview. In a Committee Preview, Committee Chairs and members could present information on a legislative item or issue and then host a more structured, facilitated conversation with members of the event to gather public input in a more formal manner.

While a Civic Expo can provide a broader overview of an issue or topic, such as transportation, a Committee Preview would likely be focused on a narrower topic. Public input from a Committee Preview could be more targeted in how it is implemented.

These ideas came from recommendations in CivicLex’s 2021 Public Input Report, which provided a series of ideas for how to improve public input in LFUCG. One of the recommendations in the report was to hold meetings specifically for public input in locations outside of the Government Center and outside business hours.