![]() But because participants are private citizens, some things were confidential. It reviewed complicated documents (from the lease to the city’s general plan) and summoned many stakeholders from a “menu” of more than 100 for question-and-answer sessions (the menu itself was drawn up by 14 local organizations who were themselves selected by lottery).Īnyone could sit in the “observers’ gallery” to watch the proceedings, which were also livestreamed on its YouTube Channel. Panelists received a stipend, equivalent to $20 per hour of deliberation, as well as child care and elder care, reimbursement for transportation costs, laptops, and language interpretation and translation. Over three months, it would hold 81 hours of meetings. Unable to find a location at the fairgrounds itself-its various venues were already booked-the panel met first at a community center and then at Kenilworth Junior High. On May 4, they followed up with a “reselection” event to fill the 12 open positions. When 12 of the 36 panel members did not confirm their participation, the organizers conducted another lottery, generating another 1,000 possible panels. (At the city’s request, Healthy Democracy aimed for slight over-representation of previously underrepresented demographics.)Īt a public event in April, organizers selected one of those panels by lottery-number 811-to become Petaluma’s citizens’ assembly. From that group, Healthy Democracy used a computer program to create 1,000 randomized potential panels of 36 people, each representative of Petaluma by age, gender, race/ethnicity, location, housing status, educational attainment, and experience of a disability. The process started with a mailing to 10,000 randomly selected residential addresses in Petaluma, inviting people to participate in the panel. Officially, the citizens’ assembly would be charged with answering this question: “How might we use the City’s fairgrounds property to create the experiences, activities, resources, and places that our community needs and desires now and for the foreseeable future?” Petaluma’s answer was to spend $450,000 to hire America’s leading experts on citizens’ assemblies, the Oregon-based nonprofit Healthy Democracy, to bring the people into the process. How to avoid more fighting and expensive litigation? That led to conflict between the city, the fair, and the obscure state agency to which the city leases the property. So, when city officials made clear that they wanted to rethink the future of the fairground, people in Petaluma worried that their traditions, livelihoods, and favorite tacos might be in jeopardy. The site also hosts a speedway, two schools, emergency shelters, a popular Mexican food spot, and many other valued pieces of Petaluma. The property, at the city’s geographical and cultural center, is home to the annual five-day Sonoma-Marin Fair and its famous centerpiece event, the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. ![]() Petaluma’s leaders decided to try a citizens’ assembly to avert a community-wide fight over the future of the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds. The assemblies offer a potential path around problems that discredit democracy in California and elsewhere: the money that corrupts elections, the lobbyists who own politicians, and the polarization that makes complex and contentious issues too difficult for elected governments to solve. In Petaluma, they called this a “lottery-selected panel.” Its more common name is “citizens’ assembly.”Ĭitizens’ assemblies are composed of everyday people, chosen by lottery, rather than elected officials. That future arrived with an unsexy name-the Petaluma Fairgrounds Advisory Panel, a version of a type of democratic body that is gaining popularity from Japan to Ireland. The Sonoma County city also showed me the future of California democracy. I went to Petaluma to learn what might become of the world’s ugliest dogs.
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