You might not know it, but city officials are listening. Now's the time to tell them what needs to be done in your neck of the 'hood and to get it set in the city's budgets for the next two years.

        This month, city planners are hosting public meetings with neighborhood residents, asking, sometimes begging, for their input.

        But so far, few residents have shown up.

        That may be because most residents don't know about the meetings. The city's efforts at publicizing them have been minimal and ineffective.

        Take Thursday night's Price Hill meeting, for instance. Three residents showed up, and they were easily outnumbered more than 2-to-1 by managers of the city's various departments.

        The residents had substantial suggestions for city planners: Shore up or tear down certain deteriorating buildings, stop spending city money on public housing, beef up police patrols, improve access to recreational facilities.

        You can't say the managers weren't listening. They brought punch and cookies and took notes. They promised to take the input back to budget officials.

        But after the session, the three neighborhood participants — one of whom was a city employee — described hearing about the meeting only that day through the grapevine. Public notice was almost nil.

        Welcome to Cincinnati's new adventure in city planning.

        This summer, for the first time, city officials are involving average citizens — not just their neighborhood council reps — in helping set priorities for the next two fiscal years. Councilman Paul Booth's idea was to gain more citizen input and buy-in, and let city officials hear from residents how existing city programs are going.

        The information is supposed to feed recommendations that City Manager Valerie Lemmie will make to council. She is expected to hold two public meetings on budget priorities.

        When City Council goes into its budget-making mode in November and December, it may be too late for this kind of grass-roots input.

        But the community meetings are almost over.

        Only five of the 14 are left; they end Thursday. The deadline for written public input is Friday.

        City officials admit that public notice has been late and too little.

        “Attendance hasn't been that great,” says Vanessa McMillan-Moore, a supervising city planner. She estimated that the best-attended meetings have attracted 10 to 15 residents.

        “I'm sure people are interested. I think it's just a matter of do people know about it.”

        Notices went to community groups in late May and early June. A press release to the news media was dated June 5, two days after the first neighborhood meeting. Notices were mailed to churches last weekend, Ms. McMillan-Moore said.

        Two meetings are set for Monday:

        • 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Sayler Park Community Center, 6720 Home City Ave.

        • 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Evanston Community Center, 3204 Woodburn Ave.

        Other scheduled meetings:

        • Over-the-Rhine Recreation Center on Tuesday.

        • McKie Recreation Center in Northside on Wednesday.

        • Le Blond Community Center in the East End on Thursday.

        “We're just throwing the net out there and seeing what we're getting in,” Ms. McMillan-Moore said.

        If you missed your community's meeting, you can attend another or call 352-4889. Failing that, contact your neighborhood council.

        Grass-roots input into city government is a laudable goal. City officials need to seek it more aggressively and much sooner.

        E-mail damos@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/amos.

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