CENTEREDGE PROJECT

Organizers' Toolkit  

 

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.  Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.       

Abraham Lincoln (First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, August 21, 1858)

Introduction

The CenterEdge Project will assist local committees in the 169 towns of Connecticut to sponsor at least 1 public education event about the information in the CT Metropatterns report by Myron Orfield and Tom Luce, commissioned by the Office of Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Hartford.  Member organizations of the CenterEdge Coalition will be asked to assist in identifying people who could be asked to serve on a local committee to plan such an event in their city or town.   A variety of resources will be provided to make this task possible, enjoyable and successful.  Each committee will be encouraged to hold an event at a time, in a place, and in a format that will work best in their community.  For assistance call the CenterEdge Project at 203.777.7279 or go to http://www.oua-adh.org/centerEdge_project.htm.

Contents

Purpose:  to provide the practical resources to enable a local committee to sponsor one or a series of public education events about the Connecticut Metropatterns Report

  1. If you want to assist with a public education forum in your town click here.  Here is a flyer to be used to encourage groups to sponsor public education events in their own community.
  2. To see a list of public education forums, click here.  To see a list of completed public education forums by city or town, or those currently being planned, click here.
  3. Copy of report in English and order form to get copies for use at education event(s).   Copy of CT Metropatterns report in Spanish with maps integrated into the text, and in text-only format.
  4. Anyone who needs the data underlying the report can click here for everything but the school data, which you can see by clicking here. 
  5. Link to interactive website to enable you to easily look up the data for one or more cities or towns for any of the CT Metropatterns maps.
  6. Definitions of some key terms in the CT Metropatterns Report
  7. Copy of the report in Spanish with maps and without maps.
  8. Planning form, task list and sample timeline Page 1 and Page 2  
  9. Sample agenda for city or town public information meeting.
  10. Here are worksheets #1 and #2 to help you plan your public education forum.
  11. Co-sponsor form for organizations willing to co-sponsor local public education forums.  Here is a sample letter you can use to request co-sponsorship.
  12. Media contacts:  newspapers and others  
  13. Municipal officials list for use in inviting key elected and appointed officials from your city or town to participate in your event.  You'll also want to invite your state legislators.  Click here for access to  those names and addresses.  It would be a good idea to let your Congressperson and Senators Dodd and Lieberman know as well.  You'll find those at the same site.   Among those you will want to invite:  chief elected official, the town council or aldermanic board (if there is one), the planning and zoning board, the wetlands commission, the town planner (if there is one), the superintendent of schools, the head of public health,  social services department, the head of economic development, the chamber of commerce, the PTA, the central labor council, interfaith or clergy association, environmental groups, hospital and health care leaders, advocacy and civil rights organizations, social welfare and housing organizations, organizations of older adults, youth organizations. Don't forget to invite the regional organization with planning responsibility for your area (see below).   
  14. For information about the regional organization with planning responsibility in your own area click here.
  15. You may want to check with your library about their space and willingness to host your community education event or to provide a room in which your committee can hold planning meetings.  Here is a list of public libraries in CT with space for meetings.  Please call the library to confirm this information. Here is a larger list of libraries:  http://www.iconn.org/lib_hp.html.
  16. Sample press release
  17. Sample flyer for general audiences to publicize a town education event.  Sample flyer for Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese who want to host an education event for their parish
  18. Sample before/after letter to the editor of local newspaper
  19. CenterEdge Speakers' Bureau list
  20. Powerpoint information in English and a translation (Word format) in Spanish
  21. Executive Summary of CT Metropatterns report in format for photocopying in English and Spanish.
  22. Order form for CenterEdge videos and reports and Spanish translations
  23. Study Circle information
  24. Deliberative Poll as tool for citizen information on regionalism
  25. Sample small-group education designs for working with the CenterEdge maps
  26. Sample church bulletin announcement  
  27. Ice Breakers
  28. Sample short newsletter announcement.
  29. CERC has fact sheets  for each town.  Click on that item on the top left menu on the page and follow directions to get to your town..
  30. UConn's CLEAR Program has a website that  has information about your town using their special technology for tracking development patterns.
  31. Town fact sheets containing the data used in the Connecticut Metropatterns report.   Call us for yours if it is not yet here and we will e-mail it or fax it to you.  You might want to add to the fact sheet on the back a description of the community type into which your town falls.  You can tell by looking at the community classification map in the report on page 5.  There are six community types:  central cities, stressed, at-risk, bedroom-developing, fringe-developing, affluent.
  32. Sign-in sheet  
  33. Connecticut Catholic Bishops' Statement about the Connecticut Metropatterns report in English and Spanish.
  34. Participant evaluation form including questions to elicit feedback on  what our cities/towns and our state should do to address the challenges  described. See comments from the towns that have had their forums.
  35. Sample letter of invitation to public education event.
  36. Report-back form to the CenterEdge Project including donations collected for Connecticut Metropatterns report.  
  37. Forms to use to request a speaker or to volunteer to be a speaker
  38. CenterEdge Coalition Member Organizations.
  39. Click here for 1000 Friends of CT, a statewide advocacy organization that provides a way to respond to the problems and challenges that are the focus of the CenterEdge Project's education campaign.
  40. Click here for topical fact sheets on affordable housing,  children's health, education, greenspace, jobs, senior citizens, transportation, and water.
  41. Click here for a map about affordable housing from the report.
  42. Here is a link to lots of downloads on smart growth: (http://www.activeliving.org/index.php/Download_Library/84).
  43. Last but not least, here is the work sheet for phone work, the single most important thing you need to do to get people to actually show up at your event.

 

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