Brisbane City Council is ideally placed at grass roots level to identify illicit drug problems, and work with the community in responding to them. In developing the Brisbane Drug Action Plan, the Lord Mayor’s Illicit Drug Taskforce undertook vital consultation with the Brisbane community.
As part of this consultation, the Taskforce surveyed the community on the illicit drug problem in Brisbane through the Your City, Your Say Reference Group in August 1998. Lord Mayor Jim Soorley said the community sent a clear message that they thought illicit drug use was a problem in the City, and that Council should play an important role in doing something about it.
Your City Your Say (YCYS) began in May 1998 as an invitation to all residents to help decide the future for Brisbane. YCYS achieves this by building partnerships between Council and citizens and involving them in making decisions.
Over 6500 people responded and became part of the YCYS Community Reference Group. They were invited to:
Provide comment and feedback to Council on a range of issues.
Participate in at least one consultation activity during the year. (These include: visioning workshops, focus groups, surveys & policy forums.)
Receive newsletters, letters and invitations to events.
The participants come from all over Brisbane and represent a variety of age groups and occupations. The major activity for 1999/2000 is Your City Your Say Your Future: a wide ranging consultation process to develop a Community Vision & Values Statement for Brisbane. It has involved both geographic based events and targeted activities with disadvantaged groups and is currently in the final write up stage.
Council will formally respond to the Statement, building the response into its corporate planning process.
