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City Council President Maureen E. Feeney is forging ahead with her plans for a one-day summit on civic engagement even as some community leaders remain skeptical about whether the large-scale gathering will be effective.
Her goal is to combat the voter apathy displayed in the most recent council election and address a decrease in active community leaders. The May 3 event would provide leaders of neighborhood associations and civic groups with tips on how to become more effective and encourage those groups to better communicate with one another, according to a draft outline of the summit prepared by Feeney's office.
"The more tools we give people, the greater the chances of our getting those new individuals to participate in creating the best Boston we can be," Feeney said. "The army is already there. We just want to give them the tools to continue doing the great work they're already doing."
A group of seven business leaders and public policy consultants will help Feeney plan the summit, to be held in donated space at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Many of the members are longtime supporters of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who says it might be impractical to accomplish much in such a large setting.
"We remain skeptical of whether it would draw new people to the discussion and whether or not new people would feel comfortable in such a large crowd," said spokeswoman Dorothy Joyce. "We wouldn't stand in her way of having such a meeting, and we look forward to seeing a more comprehensive plan."
Feeney said yesterday she still hopes the mayor will attend. Joyce said the mayor will not commit until he sees a more complete plan and knows what his role would be.
Some of the members of the advisory committee said they agreed to help Feeney plan the event in spite of their own skepticism.
"Other people besides the mayor are skeptical," said Stephen P. Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy at UMass-Boston and a committee member. "There's a lot of reasons to be skeptical. The challenge is to be open-minded and, in good faith, take this idea and see whether or not we can make something out of it."
"If it's just residents in the city walking around listening to people make speeches, that's not going to be a valuable thing," said advisory committee member Clayton Turnbull, owner of the Waldwin Group, a Dudley Square business that owns several Dunkin' Donuts franchises. "Just saying you want to do this and you have a facility and a date doesn't make you a winner. You have got to work on this thing."
Feeney's office provided a draft summit outline to the Globe, but said the committee remains open to changing the plans.
Feeney, who was elected to a second term as council president in January, said she did not offer the summit to increase her own political profile."My goal is to make Boston a better city," she said. "It's not about me."
She envisions the summit starting with an opening address to set the tone for the day, followed by a series of smaller group education sessions among the hundreds of attendees organizers expect.
Those sessions would give leaders tips on such topics as proper meeting procedures, navigating zoning issues, and making good use of volunteers' time.
The lunchtime session would encourage community leaders to erase barriers between various neighborhood and cultural groups and would be followed by small group discussions on how to do so.
Feeney and James E. Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, will co-chair the advisory committee. In addition to Crosby and Turnbull, they are joined by Jarrett T. Barrios, former state senator and president of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation; Barry Bluestone, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University; Cheryl Cronin, a Boston lawyer; and Vivien Li, executive director of The Boston Harbor Association.
"So much can be accomplished through taking some level of civic responsibility for your little piece of the neighborhood that does not rely on the government," Rooney said. "There's so many examples of people around the city that have done that, that to our knowledge have never come together and talked about it."
At least two Menino advocates on the advisory committee said they hope the mayor embraces the project. "I don't think there is another mayor that has done more at the grassroots level," Li said. "What Feeney and Rooney are doing is making sure that what the mayor has started becomes even more institutionalized."
One person who has been working on increasing civic engagement in Boston said community leaders closer to the ground level should have been included in the planning group.
"I'm a little disappointed," said David Ortiz, project manager for the Civic Engagement Initiative at MassVOTE, a voter-participation advocacy group. "I hope they reconsider and bring in community-based leaders."
Justin Holmes, a spokesman for Feeney, said a larger group of grassroots leaders might be brought together before the summit takes place.
John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
