COUNTYWIDE : Supervisors Honor Issues Forum Group

The County Board of Supervisors has honored the National Issues Forum of Orange County, a nonpartisan organization that sponsors town hall-style meetings across the county to generate interest in public policy matters.

The supervisors last week commended the group, which has operated in Orange County since 1985, sponsoring about 25 meetings each year to focus public scrutiny on subjects such as abortion, political reform, racial inequality and the economy.

“Our position is that in a democracy, the citizens are the experts in policy,” executive director Harriett Walther said. “We get people together and provide them with background information on these topics and let them express their feelings and ideas.”

Forum organizers identify three or four topics each year to explore through the meetings, which typically have 20 participants. The issues for the next round of meetings, which begins next month, are the health care cost explosion, the national debt and poverty.

Besides shedding light on political topics, forum organizers poll participants before and after the events to compile opinions and suggestions that are later passed on directly to policy-makers, Walther said.

Five hundred local and state elected officials will be invited to attend an Oct. 25 discussion of responses culled from questionnaires filled out by the Orange County citizens who participated in forums during the past year, Walther said.

Those responses, collected during meetings on the health care crisis, criminal violence, the nation’s health and the effectiveness of the political system, provide policy-makers with direct public feedback, Walther said.

“The policy-makers seem to appreciate what we’re about,” she said. “We’re not lobbying them, we’re not out there trying to get them to do something, we’re not a special interest. We’re a grass-roots group giving (officials) information they can’t always get.”

The next citizen forum, the Poverty Puzzle, will be Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. at the Irvine Ranch Water District, 15600 Sand Canyon Ave. in Irvine. Participants must register in advance and pay $7.50 to cover costs of a mailed background booklet on the topic.

Call (714) 724-1412 for other meeting dates and locations or for more information about the National Issues Forum chapter, which is an affiliate of the Irvine Valley College Foundation.