City/Town Council Paper----4 pages

City/Town Council Paper SPEA V161: Urban Problems & Solutions

For this assignment you must attend or watch the tape of a City Council or Town Council meeting. The City of Bloomington meetings are held the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 in Council Chambers. The Town of Ellettsville holds their Council meetings the second and fourth Mondays of the month at 7:00 PM in the Ellettsville Fire Station (West SR 46 about 6 miles from campus). The City of Bedford’s Council meetings are the second Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM.

For this assignment you must attend or watch the tape of a City Council meeting. City of Bloomington meetings are held the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 in Council Chambers. If you wish to attend a Bedford City Council meeting they take place on the second Tuesday of each month beginning at 7:00 PM in City Hall located at 1102 16th Street.

Webcasts, agendas and minutes for Bloomington City Council meetings can be found at

http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/council by looking under the Council Meeting Heading and clicking on the link to “VIEW LIVE AND ARCHIVED COUNCIL MEETINGS WITH CIVIC WEBCASTS” and “VIEW COUNCIL MINUTES”. To view the meeting on line, you will either need to have RealPlayer installed on your computer or you can use one of the Macs in the campus computer labs. Your grade will be based on analysis of the issue, your creativity to approaching the problem, the clarity and quality of your writing. In addition, the use of references to the class text and lectures, as well as outside sources should be used. A rubric grading form for this assignment is available via Canvas and will be used for grading papers. While there is no page limit, I expect most papers to be approximately four (4) pages long double-spaced, not including the attached agenda. Margins must not exceed one inch and the font must be 11 or 12 point Times New Roman. The paper must be uploaded via Canvas and a hard copy must be submitted in class. The paper must include the appropriate header, be double-sided and stapled.

Your assignment is to watch the proceeding of the meeting (I would suggest that you take notes to help you track what is happening). Please identify an issue(s) or problem(s) that are discussed during the council meeting and complete a thorough analysis. This analysis should be tied to the text, and/or topics that we have discussed in class. You should also complete additional research that provides insight into the topic that may include how other communities have addressed similar issues successfully, as well as how city planning would impact the problem. The best papers should properly cite sources both in the text and use a bibliography or works cited page.

After completing an analysis of the issue articulate how you would attempt to address this problem if you were in a position of leadership and/or a citizen being impacted by the problem. Your creativity to approaching the problem and the clarity and quality of your writing will be considered in assigning your grade. Please see the Rubric Spreadsheet for information regarding the grading criteria for V161. In addition, you should explain the

choices that you made in addressing the problem based upon the text, topics, and other reading in the class.

While there is no page limit, I expect most papers to be approximately four (4) pages long, double-spaced and double sided. Margins must not exceed one inch and the font must be 11 or 12 point Times New Roman.

Papers should be submitted via Canvas by 9:30 AM on the due date. Papers and assignments must also be printed (double-sided) and stapled before turning in a hard copy, which is required in order to earn full credit.

Each assignment must include identifying information in the top left hand corner. This should include first and last name, student identification number, assignment title, and date submitted. Assignments that do not include the appropriate identifying information will lose points. Below is an example of the appropriate format for the header of each assignment.

Shawna Girgis Student ID: 211350 City Council Paper March 3, 20171 

The videos is http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=152

http://catstv.net