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Reforms to Enhance Democracy in Urbana

  • Encourage regular neighborhood-, ward-, and community-wide forums to identify and discuss issues and problems of concern to residents of Urbana.
  • Use new communications technology to open City Council deliberations to participation by place-bound and mobility restricted individuals.
  • Experiment with "participatory budgeting" as a way of involving the wider public in decisions about how their tax money gets spent.
  • Encourage greater use of publicly-initiated referenda (binding and non-binding) in City decision making thereby achieving more direct democracy.
  • Adopt electoral reforms that will encourage wider participation (by candidates, parties, and voters) in City elections and guarantee that no candidate be elected with less than 50% of the votes cast.
  • Initiate a City "Matching Grants Program" to encourage the development of community improvement projects throughout the community, projects initiated by existing nonprofit organizations or new grassroots citizen groups. Such a program would create new avenues for residents to become actively involved in bettering their own lives and the life of the community; it would energize citizen action in many constructive ways.