About

(Nick Lisi/Post-Standard) Many people see a rainbow over Syracuse, and believe that the city is on the upswing. Let

Efforts to create a dynamic agenda for Central New York have often failed to include average citizens in any sort of productive, systematic or comprehensive way.
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As a result, many innovative and well-intentioned efforts to better our region have stalled, lacking the enthusiasm from citizens that’s needed to push those plans forward.

With your help, we hope to change that.

The Post-Standard, Syracuse.com and Syracuse University’s Maxwell School are teaming up to launch a region-wide dialog with the goal of creating a citizen-based agenda for our future.

The goal is to discover, all of us together, what we want Central New York to be, and to make that vision a reality.

This endeavor will include discussions, both online and in person, with hundreds of citizens, as well as reporting and research that will help illuminate the issues.

These discussions will not be free-for-alls. They will not be opportunities for a small group of advocates to dominate. They also won’t be too tightly controlled, a means to legitimize some already conceived agenda.

Instead, we’ll use trained moderators to explore your concerns, identify the region’s strengths, tease out the best ideas, and, ultimately, to build consensus around a shared vision of our future.

We believe, through this communication, that we can provide our political leadership with the information and impetus to make the best possible decisions for our communities.

Goals

Our overarching goal is to better Central New York for us all. We think we can do this if we:

• Raise the level of civic attention and involvement;
• Raise the quality of citizen deliberation, communication and decision-making;
• Stimulate better, more honest communication between citizens and elected officials and candidates;
• And improve the responsiveness of elected officials.