Brown Bag Lunch Program @ Five Points West Regional Library: Community Forum on Making Democracy Work As It Should

Why does it seem that citizens have retreated from public life and do little about the issues that concern them? Is reclaiming the public’s role essential to our community’s prosperity? What should we do about it? A Birmingham Issues Forum on this issue will be conducted at the Five Points West Regional Library On Thursday, March 11, 2010 as a part of the Brown Bag Lunch Series.

In a deliberative forum, citizens weigh carefully the attractions, weaknesses, costs, and consequences of differing perspectives on how to approach an issue. Most importantly, citizens identify acceptable and unacceptable tradeoffs among the differing approaches. By identifying what is acceptable and unacceptable, citizens create common ground for potentially more effective action on the issue.

Birmingham Issues Forums is a part of the Alabama Issues Forums, a project of the David Mathews Center for Civic Life, in cooperation with the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University and a number of partners around the state. The Mathews Center is a non-partisan, tax-exempt entity for the purpose of fostering public deliberation and innovative community decision-making. For more information on Alabama Issues Forums, visit www.mathewscenter.org.

Details
"Making Democracy Work As It Should"
Five Points West Regional Library
Thursday, March 11
noon

For more information contact:
Virginia Guthrie: 205-226-4013; ginger@bham.lib.al.us
Curtis L. Sparks, III: sparksconsultinginc@yahoo.com
Chris McCauley: cmccauley@mathewscenter.org