Meet Mayor mary hooper and director Gwen in city hall

Posted by Yuka as Hot Cities

Mike arranged a meeting with mayor mary for me yesterday. When I got there, I am not sure if it is the municipal building, because you can not see any people outside of the door, no doorkeeper and guards either. What’s more, you can not see the obvious sign of city hall. And this building has big words”xxxx theater”.(I found the first floor and the basement are the municipal government office later, and the 2nd and 3rd floors belongs to the theater, and people can go to the hall at anytime they want. The manager’s office is just right of the gate, where you can see many people are working in the same office with mayor mary. The big office is just like many offices of companies.) I felt a little strange, so I checked my map, on which mike marked the city hall. When I was checking, mary came over and said: are you ouyang? Actually her pronunciation is very strange, so I did not realize she was calling my name. and I asked“is here the city hall? I am not sure, because I can not see the sign on this building.”when we came close to the gate, I found the small sign“city hall”.

Mary is the third female mayor in Montpelier. Mary told me they encourage citizens to tell them what’s happening and what problems do they have in the communities. They have a long participation tradition here. when I said in china, most people will be tired after work, so they don’t want to participate in any activities in communities. She agreed and said, if you want them to participate, you should listen to them. If they don’t come to you, then you can come to them. They have council meetings and other special meetings, mary goes to the citizens’ meeting often.

The city government works with many NGOs, and they set a grant which any citizen can apply in according to the grant range. The grant range is made by the city council, which is comprised of several citizen representatives and the mayor.
They have regular meeting agenda in the evening, so every people can go to talk to Mayor. And people can know what is the government doing via the local newspaper, TV and other medium. The citizens can even receive the email from the manager’s office. Mary has the background to know how to motivate people to participate. She knows many good technics. She worked in NGOs and at last she think public participation is very important, so when the last mayor said he don’t want to do the job again she got the job.

When I asked suggestions about how to start to mobilize people. She told me a small story. She told me, don’t do things for them, ask them to do it by themselves. As a start, doing small things that people can see the benefits. When you do many small things, then the little thing leads to another little thing, then people believe the government belong to them.

At last, she gave me some materials hoping to share the participation information with me.
I met Gwen, the director of the department of planning &community development, in their basement office today. We met before in a visioning meeting in a school. At that time, Gwen is the facilitator of that meeting. And as she behaves, she said her role is to initiate and organize the participation. They also have rooms and people can ask for rooms and small grants from the government. They are real facilitators of citizens. Gwen said it seems her department is an organization. She actually came back from China several weeks ago, she trained for the central party University in Qinghai province. She told the officials and professors, if you don’t let people participate, then you can only have them when they go to complain.

She told me 80% fund of NGOs come from the government. So the American government like to cooperate with NGOs. She also worked for several NGOs before she serving for the city government.
At last, she shared some information with me and gave me a book: local action for sustainable economic renewal—guide to community development. She also gave the website to me for more information. At last, she invited me to her home for a party to share her trip to china tomorrow night. What a kind lady!
If I can meet more people like them, I will enjoy my internship more.