Neighborhood Assemblies

The assemblies began as an argument about a footbridge. In 2011 the county proposed replacing the Fairmount crossing at a cost that nobody in the ward could account for, and the objection that carried was not about the money — it was that no one had been asked. Fourteen years later, every ward in the 12th District has a standing assembly, and the footbridge argument is the one we still use to explain why.

What an assembly actually does

An assembly is not a consultation. It has a budget line, a quorum, and a published set of rules about what it may and may not decide.

• It allocates. Each assembly holds a fixed share of the district’s discretionary capital budget — currently 4% — and decides what it is spent on.
• It scrutinizes. Any council paper affecting the ward is tabled at the assembly seventy-two hours before the vote, in plain language.
• It reports. Minutes are published within five working days, including the votes of every member present.

What it may not do is bind the council on matters outside the ward, or reallocate money that has already been committed. Those limits are written down, which is the reason the assemblies have survived three changes of administration.

The part that took longest

Getting people through the door was never the difficulty. Keeping the same people coming back for a second year was. Three things made the difference, and none of them were about the agenda:

1. A fixed date. Second Tuesday, seven o’clock, every month, whether or not there is business.
2. Childcare in the room, not down the corridor.
3. A written answer to every question raised, sent to the person who raised it, within a fortnight.

The moment an assembly becomes a place where questions go to die, it stops being an assembly and becomes a mailing list with chairs.

Where it goes next

The commitment for this term is to raise the discretionary share from 4% to 10%, and to extend the seventy-two-hour rule to every council paper rather than only those with a named ward impact. Both changes are costed in the agenda, and both are the kind of thing that only happens if the people who want it keep turning up.