Purpose: Now initiating its third year of collaboration, the Neighborhood Involvement Alliance brings together Salt Lake community councils and University of Utah faculty and students in order to investigate ways west Salt Lake residents can become more active participants in their community councils. This partnership includes a University undergraduate political science course grounded on community-based research, and consultant focus group surveys facilitated by UNP staff.

Community Councils: Salt Lake City’s community councils are neighborhood-based community organizations whose purpose is to provide community input and information to city departments. The community councils are encouraged to make recommendations to the city on all matters affecting the city or each organization’s particular community or neighborhood. All city council districts have community councils.

Thus far, UNP has partnered with Glendale Community Council and Rose Park Community Council. They have presented reports to Fairpark, Glendale, Rose Park, and Central City.

Each council in the west Salt Lake neighborhoods have individual organizational structures and meeting times and places. West Salt Lake residents interested in attending community council meetings can consult the following table:

Neighborhood	Time	Date	Place
Westpointe	6:30p	3rd Wed of month	Day-Riverside Library
Rose Park	6:30p	1st Wed of month	Day-Riverside Library
Jordan Meadows	6:30p	2nd Wed of month	Meadowlark Elem.
Fairpark	6:30p	4th Thursday	Northwest Multi-Purpose Center
Poplar Grove	7p	4th Wed of month	Pioneer Precinct
Glendale	7p	3rd Wed of month	Mountain View Elem.
People’s Freeway	6:30p	1st Wed of month	Indian Walk-In Center

History: In Spring of 2003, the Executive Committee of the Glendale Community Council approached University Neighborhood Partners with a request for a project that would involve University faculty, community council leaders, and Glendale residents to identify the barriers to participation in community council affairs among Glendale’s diverse residents.

This group met regularly in 2003 and 2004, culminating in a series of six focus groups conducted by faculty with 28 Glendale residents and offered a report for the Community Council that recommended resident generated strategies to help increase inclusion and participation. Among the recommendations:

• Emphasize community-building activities, such as an annual street fair
• Build bridges to other local organizations, such as a organizing a neighborhood cleanup
• Increase information to residents, such as creating a community newsletter for newly arrived residents that explains the purpose of community councils

It also summarized various obstacles residents cited as preventing greater participation, such as:

• Lack of information about the time, place, and function of a Community Council
• Language differences between participants and potential participants
• Time constraints, including work, family, and other commitments to other local organizations

Neighborhood Democracy: This spring, Political Science professor Dr. Luke Garrott  will teach Neighborhood Democracy a course he designed to provide students the opportunity to study issues of grassroots democracy. The idea for the course emerged out of his initial work with the Glendale Community Council. Students explore democratic theory, sub-municipal politics, leadership, and community development and organization. University students enrolled in the course experience civic-oriented learning, largely through reflective experiential knowledge. Dr. Garrott envisions the activist teaching he practices as leading to a discovery process for authentic citizenship in each student, modeling the various ways citizens can sustain democracy in their own lives, neighborhoods, city, state, and ultimately, nation.

Last year, students partnered with YouthCity (a city-wide youth programming that provides innovative and enriching activities offered in various city community centers, schools and parks both after-school and during the summer.) to support a youth community planning initiative that engaged young residents in Glendale and Popular Grove neighborhoods to update the master community development plan for west Salt Lake.

This year, students in Neighborhood Democracy will launch two new projects. A third of the class will help develop leadership course curriculum to be used by the WLI (hyperlink) by conducting focus group interviews with past WLI participants. The remaining third will produce a documentary film featuring the history of civic involvement by west Salt Lake residents.

Surveys: The students in the Neighborhood Democracy class have conducted over 350 door to door interviews with residents in Rose Park, Fair Park, Glendale and Central City to ask them about life and their civic involvement in their neighborhood. The results of these polls are shared with their respective community councils in order to provide fresh perspectives from their constituencies. The survey findings can help community councils expand their reach to individuals and helping to revitalize neighborhood-level politics in Salt Lake City.

Findings: Some of the survey findings include the following:

• West Salt lake neighborhood parks draw heavy use by residents. Over 60% of Glendale residents reported visiting their neighborhood park regularly. Over 90% of Rose Park residents visit their parks. Most residents claim to enjoy strolling their neighborhoods, with over 80% of Fairpark residents, over 75% of Rose Park and over 40% of Glendale residents citing enjoying walking throughout their neighborhoods.
  
  
• A strong sense of community was felt by west Salt Lake residents as well. Half of the Fairpark residents said they knew their next door neighbors very well, as did over 60% of Rose Park and 45% of Glendale respondents. In addition, nearly 35% of Rose Park residents cited the friendly nature of the community and their neighbors as one of the reasons they still enjoyed living there. Over 25% of Fairpark and Glendale residents said the said.
  
  
• Also significant was the majority of respondents who had lived in their neighborhoods for over 10 years—77% of Glendale, 51% of Fairpark, and 53% of Rose Park residents had long ties to their respective communities.
  
  
• A large number of respondents also indicated a high awareness of their respective community councils (41% of Fairpark; 74% of Rose Park; and 63% of Glendale residents). However, a less significant portion had actually attended a community council meeting (15% of Fairpark; 26% of Rose Park; and 23% of Glendale).

Rose Park Community Festival: Students in the Neighborhood Democracy class have worked with the Rose Park Community Council to organize the annual Rose Park Community Festival. Last spring the festival drew 1,100 attendees. This year’s festival will be held Saturday, April 26^th, 2008.

Community Partners: Glendale Community Council member Jesse Draper had this to say about partnering with UNP:

While working with UNP, I saw benefit in the resources that the entire University had to offer.  Not only was my interaction with UNP, but with several other faculty members and students that UNP engaged on our behalf.  We experienced the level of commitment and passion that these individuals have for making our community a better place to live. One of the challenges, however, in working with University partners is that that there is a difference between working for the benefit of Glendale and then going home to your own community at the end of the day.  For those of us that actually live here and experience the frustrations of our community life, it is our reality and far more than a theoretical discussion.”

 

Student partners: Student response to the Neighborhood Democracy course have been positive, with 90% strongly agreeing that they have learned a great deal in the course. Another majority also noted they developed collaborative skills in the course. All agreed  they had gained a better understanding of diverse groups and issues related to diversity.

One student noted:

“My mind opened as I watched families from the community come together in such a way that not only benefited them but benefited me as well.” Another said, “My preconceptions of community council meetings were a tad off. This wasn’t what I would call action packed, but it was entertaining at times watching the interaction between the citizens and the guest speakers. I enjoyed a certain feeling in the meeting. I felt like I was part of the ‘grass roots’ of politics in that room.”

Follow this link ( www.cs.utah.edu/~spjute ) to view interactive GIS (Geographic Information Systems) maps of the Glendale neighborhood.  Explore the major demographic changes that are reshaping the neighborhood and the dynamics of public decision-making.  Maps were created for UNP by students in the Geography Department at the U.

Contact: Sarah Munro sarah.munro@utah.edu