Clear Vision Civic Engagement
An underlying crisis facing communities is how to confront and address their most pressing fiscal, social, and political issues. In June 2007 the City of Eau Claire collaborated with area governments, school institutions, and community organizations to implement Clear Vision Eau Claire, an inclusive citizen-based community visioning and strategic planning initiative. Using a civic organizing framework, Clear Vision expanded community capacity for civic problem-solving and collaboration.
The Clear Vision civic organizing model emphasizes civic training, developing joint public leadership, and realigning the community institutions and spaces where people do public work with more participatory approaches. The underlying rationale is that enduring civic engagement requires that citizens learn and practice effective public problem-solving skills, and that community institutions create opportunities for active citizenship by sparking involvement, equipping engagement, and embedding collaboration.
Working with the National Civic League and the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Clear Vision identified 125 action strategies for six long-term community key performance areas:
- Civic engagement
- Economic development
- Education
- Health
- Quality of life
- Transportation
Common to all the performance areas are the twin concepts of building civic problem-solving skills and embedding collaboration among community governments, organizations, and educational institutions. Unique to the Clear Vision approach has been the convening and training of diverse civic action teams to address specific community issues, including:
- jobs for the underemployed
- environment sustainability
- collaborative education
- community performing arts facilities
- regional transit
- public parks facilities
- treatment instead of incarceration
The Clear Vision civic engagement model has been presented at international workshops on citizen participation and participatory governance in England and Scotland. Clear Vision and Eau Claire were also featured in a National League of Cities webinar earlier this year, and invited to participate in the 2010 Annual Congress of Cities Showcase Exhibition of innovative local government programs.