Communication: Within Community & With Broader Community

Relationship Building (29 Responses)

• Develop consistently humane and rigorous approach to problem solving
• Improve communication among schools, cities and community
• Improve communication between students and adults
• Improve public relations
• Develop better ways for people to communicate with each other
• Continue needs assessment process and grow it out so that all ages come together for meaningful conversations
• Create more interaction for communities, parents and schools via the website
• Create more opportunities for neighborhood input on development
• Solicit more community-wide and county-wide perspectives when making decisions
• Hold more focus groups and large community forums
• Have people work together to solve problems
• Increase civility in how we work together
• Listen to everyone but beware of squeaky wheels in the minority opinion
• Hold ongoing sessions with community members of varying perspectives, backgrounds and roles in the community
• Find ways to integrate minority opinions into decision making process
• Involve citizens before issue reaches critical stage
• Empower citizens to identify and solve own issues
• Reconnect citizens who are disconnected from the community, government, school district
• Engage families and citizens who don’t feel they “belong” (lower income, uneducated or with limited involvement in community activities)
• Establish community conversations about things that matter
• Start a breakfast club and “Taste of West Des Moines”

Collaboration (27 Responses)

• Have communities work together but maintain own identities, remain independent and be self-reliant as possible
• Establish better relationship, communication, cooperation and collaboration with Des Moines and other suburbs
• Encourage broader sharing of efforts, services, resources and expertise among Des Moines, suburbs and Polk County
• Share ideas and money
• Ensure that each city manages resources effectively before creating county-wide government
• Support Polk county-Des Moines merger
• Strengthen connection between cities in “community”
• Eliminate sense of rivalry
• Create stronger community and business partnerships
• Continue efforts to collaborate with county, city and schools and publicize their efforts
• Build collaboration between various services
• Pool resources and information among agencies
• Establish better connection among all public and private schools to share goals and educational opportunities
• Put all elections on election day

Information Sharing (24 Responses)

• Disseminate “common communication” – need better way to get connected to see what’s available and raise awareness of existing opportunities
• Hold open forums on assistance available in community health, education, finance
• Make football schedule available to all affected (local churches, library, etc.)
• Raise awareness of adult learning possibilities
• Build awareness of problems and issues in our community
• Do more publicity of community events, meetings, community council meetings
• Market community resources to consumers
• Put out more flyers for the district Instructional Material Center (IMC), which is located in the Learning Resource Center
• Create easier direct communication with authorities
• Disseminate more information about library programs, construction projects and closed roads
• Create newsletter of issues on West Des Moines City Council agenda