How to Make a Request to Olympia’s Coalition of Neighborhood Associations

Thanks for your interest in bringing an issue to Olympia’s neighborhood leaders.  Based on how well your  request meets the criteria the Coalition has established to evaluate requests, the Coalition’s Steering Committee will make a decision on whether or not to grant your request.   The primary criteria the Steering Committee will use to consider your request are listed below.  These criteria are only guidelines so you know what we’ll be looking for in your request.

The list of priority themes in included so you have a sense of the kind of issues neighborhood leaders have expressed an interest in.  However, even if your issue or request doesn’t fall under one of these themes, we still want to hear from you.   We just ask you to explain to us in your request why your issue would be of interest to neighborhoods. 

• Serves the Coalition’s mission 
• The topic is of wide interest to neighborhoods
• A specific action is being requested of Coalition members
• The topic is timely and relevant 
• The topic is appropriate for full Coalition consideration
• The topic fits within these priority themes:
  
• Downtown
• Land Use/Zoning
• Local Government Process
• Parks and Recreation
• Pedestrian/Bicycle              
• Public Safety
• Transportation             
• Waterfront

In drafting your request, please remember that the Coalition does not make endorsements or take positions on any issue.  The Coalition provides a forum for individuals and community organizations to present topics to neighborhood association leaders, and ask for their help and support.

The Coalition prefers issues that it can discuss and take action on rather than only receiving presentations.  Please think about ways to encourage interaction about your issue from the group.  It’s simple to make a request to present to the Coalition.  Just follow these simple steps:

1. Review the criteria and process the Coalition adopted to consider and act on requests
2. Fill out the CNA Presentation Request Form (Word)
   
3. Include any additional information, handouts, copies of presentations you plan to make, etc. and include them with your request
4. Email your request to olympianeighborhoods-steering@googlegroups.com or send a hard copy to the address at the bottom of the form.

If our meeting schedule does not allow you to bring your issue before the Coalition in a timely way, you can request to send your information to all the members of our Members Mailing List by sending an email to olympianeighborhoods@googlegroups.com.   If the Steering Committee decides that your information is relevant to and would be of interest to the group, they will accept the message and post it to the group.  This can take several days so please factor that in when sending emails.  If the Steering Committee decides your message is not relevant or appropriate to send to the group, you will be notified and given an opportunity to challenge the decision.