Oro Valley Community Academy: 27 Years of Engagement

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By Bayer Vella, Planning Manager, Town of Oro Valley

Oro Valley continues to be one of the most engaged communities in Southern Arizona. We received over 8,900 comments for OV’s Path Forward, and that is a prime reason Oro Valley is an award-winning community: we have phenomenal engagement. And very often when people become engaged with an issue they’re passionate about, they show up and attend a public meeting for the first time. To increase participation and help the experience be less daunting for residents, especially those showing up to a board, commission or Town Council meeting for the first time, Community Academy was started 27 years go.

Community Academy helps residents learn about the Town and local government. My first academy was in 1999 and I have seen it grow and adapt over the years, to the point that this academy has become integral to Oro Valley’s culture of community engagement. This year’s Community Academy ran throughout October and into November.

The Town’s Community Academy has its roots in the creation of the Citizen Planning Institute (CPI) in 1997, which two Town planners working in conjunction with Town Council members established to provide residents with more tools to effectively participate within their community and government. The idea stemmed from Town Council and staff at that time noticing that the average person walking into a meeting often was not aware of, or did not understand, the rules and parameters that the Town has to work under. And so it began as a process to encourage our residents to engage earlier in the planning process, as well as other governmental processes.

Oro Valley was the first municipality in Arizona to try this, and from the beginning, the Community Academy has had really good attendance. The Town has held it annually since its inception, and what started as a primer in planning and zoning morphed into an overall course on civil discourse: how to make presentations, how to negotiate with a developer and how to get involved eventually grew into covering broader topics. The Town began to encourage Town Council members and the Planning and Zoning Commission go through the course. In the early 2000s it became a requirement for all board and commission members to attend and the name of the program was changed to the Community Academy.

One of the big lightbulb moments that happens in the academy is that people start to understand how complex the issues the Town faces are. They say, “Oh, I didn’t realize there were so many other factors involved with each issue.” For planning and zoning we could have information from the water utility, public works, police or finance that all get factored into the process. One of the overall lessons of the entire academy is that there’s no single factor that goes into decision-making, regardless of the topic; it’s weighing and balancing a multitude of elements, laws and expectations of the community into a decision.

Community Academy continues to be a unique and well-attended program provided by the Town. And it’s free. The atmosphere lends itself to an exchange of ideas between participants and staff. While we as staff teach these courses, we also get to learn from our residents about the issues and topics that are important to them.

Each year, the topics and information are updated to keep the program relevant and interesting. For instance, this year’s program focused on the topics required in the community’s next 10-year action plan, known as OV’s Path Forward, and the direction received from residents about each. It also included new classes about stormwater management and the Town’s Court system. The latter were recommended by previous participants.

Graduates from the program continue to stay engaged by joining a board/commission or attending public meetings at ease. It’s great to watch as residents begin to understand how easy it is to get involved in a small community like ours and make a big difference very quickly. Our residents can, and do, make a difference.