My experience in the community tells me that there are a lot of experts, who would like to help.  It might be possible to get them for free, but it would be ok to pay them too at some set rate so that they would feel appreciated.  I'm sure the rates would be reasonable.

Why isn't this done?

One reason is that most of the people who have time and the experience to do such a job are retired and the Town does not know their background at all.  They somehow have appeared in the community like an alien from space, but forgot their skills on some planet light years away. 

So the first job is to have a registered database of the resumes of people who might be interested in helping. It would have to be brutally vetted, culled and maintained.

Let's ask that question again ...

"Why isn't this done?  The first reason is valid, but the next reason is more subtle and probably the real reason.  It's hard to work with cantankerous old experts who don't go away when they are done and stay right in the community.  They don't care about the next contract or their next raise, because they don't work for you.

It's like hiring your neighbor to do something for you and regretting it forever and not being able to replace what they did for you, if you want to change it.  Can this be overcome?

I think it can.  I think it must.  There is a subtle restlessness in the community.  It's hard to get to the bottom of it, but what I've heard over and over again is the phrase "We can't do anything about it".

The twice a year community meeting is not the proper forum for really getting anything done.  It's a relic from the Empire and not as good as the Maine Town Meetings, which are an exercise in torture.  Our Town Meetings are too few and far in between and they are usually chaotic, if you allow everyone and anyone to control the meeting.

 I can tell by the facial expressions, that town officials don't like these meetings.  You have to have fortitude to do that type of thing and that's not in stock here.  I would not like them either.  I'd avoid them.  They are a waste of time.

So what can be done?  Lot's of communities have a database of skills and also an online database of what the people want.  This is not a trivial thing and it can be abused, but it is done.  I have at my side now over 400 questions that were asked of a 'Village' in England.  They are quite interesting. 

Could we get anyone to sit down and answer these questions at a sitting?  I doubt it, but over time you could do it and it might be revealing.  People here would say:  "Ah, it's a waste of time, they won't listen!"

The best public meetings that I ever attended were hosted by Professor David Douglas of the University of Guelph in the old Southampton Town Hall.  By some miracle, the Town of Southampton brought in Professor Douglass for a series of Town Meetings (twice a week) for the entire summer! I think he got paid $15,000 and he was worth it. 

He excluded any public or elected official from attending. That caught my attention right away.  He was on some new wave length.   He brought in some bright graduate students who did a great job, because they were marked down, if they didn't.

What he did was ask questions and vent the people who attended.  I really mean vent. They could just 'bitch' up a storm and they did!

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Over time he appointed some 'table coordinators' to get the information that he knew was hidden in the community, deep down.  It was fun to see the process roll out.  I got a kick out of seeing some people come for a meeting or two and air their gripes and never attend again.  That was ok.  If they did not get their point across, it probably was not good enough.

More comical were the people who came to kind of 'control the process'.  I spotted a couple early on and knew they would not last.  They were the people who somehow worked around the system all their lives.  Remember them in school?  One even assumed a table coordinator status, but soon found out it was too much work and was not seen again.

How did Douglas do it and what was his method?  It was simple:  He spent the time and ....

• He vented, vented, vented... the people over time
• He found out what they wanted by constantly simplifying what they said.  That is, if they could not express themselves on a single 3x5 card, then what they said was ignored.  The people got mad and came back with a better explanation or saw that what they wanted was not really that important.
• He gave the process enough time so that distillation could be achieved. 

His process was simply VENTING and DISTILLING

Douglas was not a tired 'meeting coordinator/facilitator' who writes silly comments on an easel and smiles at the person giving them some solace for their bad idea.  We've all been involved with that.  They write down any drivel that comes along and hope for a good lunch before they go back to the city and send an invoice.

Douglas really made the people work and out of that set of summer sessions came a series of good ideas that got implemented in one form or another... another miracle

The Miracles

1. A sense of the importance of the beach, the grass and the dunes that still resonates as seen by some of the discussions and letters in the Saugeen Times.  The Town is realizing the importance and is far more sensitive than in the past.  (See Council Meeting  and Deputy Mayor Doug Freiburger's comments, which show he has depth of knowledge on the issue)
2. High Street Improvement with signage and period lighting.  Take a look!  It actually got better.  The Town helped a lot
3. Chantry Island Restoration as an Icon of the area. Tremendous effort by 'experts' without invoice.  Again the  Town helped tremendously. This was a perfect coordination of volunteers and Town staff and officials.

Could it be that another set of meetings.... let's say 10 in number could be put together whose purpose would be to find local experts who could and would help the Town planning process?  Out of this could come an active and growing database of skills at least.

Doing this again would require farsighted acceptance by the Town and a lot of work with at least two months planning before the first meeting.  Out of it some good might come.  It's such a simple process.  That's its main flaw.  It is too simple.  Something must be amiss.