Civic Journalism: Six Case Studies
TALLAHASSEE, FLA.
"The Public Agenda"

"I was anticipating a meeting where people would be talking about their differences and how to overcome them. Is that what happened? No. . . .For the first few meetings everybody seemed to have a private agenda. There was no real organization," he said.

A couple of meetings later, he said, the group decided to split into four smaller groups. Each was assigned to agree on five things that would benefit the Tallahassee area. All four groups combined their lists and ultimately came to common agreement on five things -- personal responsibility, integration, symbolism, affirmative action, and the media. Those things became the group's agenda. Each participant also was assigned to talk about something, an exercise that opened windows on participants' perceptions and gave individuals a personal task.

Merrick doesn't see "The Public Agenda" as a place for easy solutions. "I envisioned at the onset that it would not last any more than maybe a year, year and a half, then we would all go out as facilitators and start 20 to 25 more groups and in another year and half that would happen again and within 10 to 12 years all of Leon County would take part."

Instead, he realizes that projects such as "The Public Agenda" will take longer to foster public change.

It is too soon to gauge the effectiveness of the project, but the small groups seem to be working. Here is a snapshot of some of their activities:

• Children, Values and Education. This group split into six subgroups to tackle such issues as teens, pre-school years and parent education, vision, moral values, agency coordination and program monitoring. Teenagers, for instance, have proposed the creation of a "skate" park, for such things as skateboards and roller-skating.

• Crime. This group meets regularly with community experts, often at the Tallahassee Police Department, as part of their effort to deal with crime prevention and intervention. One idea is a community organization to prevent drug abuse and serve as a support to the poor.

• Community and Race Relations. One of the most active groups, the participants have planned an affirmative action panel for the fall of 1995.

• Growth and the Environment. Meeting every other week, this broadly representative group of developers, politicians and environmentalists hopes to mesh planning and growth with environmental concerns. Achieving a consensus on these issues would be a first for Tallahassee. The group hopes to try vision planning, which calls for communities to use slides to gauge public attitudes. For instance, some people might react negatively to a slide of palm trees and hibiscus in median strips, others may like that but object to mirrored buildings.

• Jobs and the Economy. Meeting intermittently, this group has focused on teen unemployment, bringing new jobs to the area and coping with a large pool of underemployed, overqualified workers. Some members are employment-support professionals.

• Teens Speak Out. Teenagers have led forums on such issues as crime, teen pregnancy and racism. They have also petitioned the Leon County School Board for classes on multiculturalism. Plans for late 1995 include a larger forum on education with local music groups and sports stars as a draw.