Kyle Fackrell

ePortfolio Civic Engagement Final Assignment

1. My activity was a Herriman town hall meeting to discuss the Olympia project. This
project is a high density housing development with 33,000 people living on 932 acres of
land. The meeting took place at Herriman High School in the auditorium (11917 S
Mustang Trail Way, Herriman, UT 84096) on the 14th of June and started at 6:30 PM.
Outside the school there were a few people on the side of the street protesting with
signs and getting people to honk for the cause. Next to these protestors was a petition
that people could sign that went against the development plan. Mayor Mcadams and a
few city council members were attending the meeting. The meeting consisted of citizens
lining up and expressing their opinions about the project. Before I attended, I expected
to hear people for it, against it, and maybe some compromises for the project. What
ended up happening was every single person that spoke was against the plan. I don’t
recall any compromises and everyone demanded that we veto the project and start from
scratch. This 100 percent majority was probably due to the sheer overpopulation that
this plan would bring to the area. The citizens who spoke expressed a lot of negative
impacts that would result from this project. The problem that I heard the most was how it
would add to the traffic that is already bad during traffic hours. Multiple people
suggested that the city council members voting on this should drive to the development
site during traffic hours to realize how bad the traffic gets. Some of the other problems
that were mentioned included: overpopulated schools, no plan for public transportation,
increased taxes, evacuation difficulties, and more. mayor McAdams vetoed the the plan
2. My topic deals with the relationship between the individual and society, reform and
public policy. The Herriman town hall meeting can be related to Ancient Greek
Democracy that is mentioned in the module 5 page “The Greeks”. It is mentioned that
an early form of democracy called demokratia was created by an Athenian leader
named Cleisthenes. This political system was made up of three separate institutions
with dikasteria being one of these three. From “The Greeks” page, dikasteria involved
“popular courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected jurors”.
This old dikasteria system and the modern Herriman town hall meeting have a variety of
of differences and similarities. Our modern political system gives power to the
representatives of the people while dikasteria gives power to the citizens directly. The
town hall meeting had city council members and the mayor instead of lottery selected
jurors. These two systems operate very differently but they are both similar in how they
allow individual citizens to affect society. The Herriman town hall meeting can also be
related to reform and public policy. The revolution and reform module talks about the
french revolution and how people got together to make a change. The town hall meeting
didn’t involve the revolution aspect of forcefully overthrowing the government with
Kyle Fackrell

violence. It did, however, involve people getting together, expressing their opinion, and
protesting in order to bring reform to the government's public policy..
3. I think that my participation did help promote my freedom and the freedom of other
Herriman citizens. The biggest impact that I had was being one of the signatures
needed for the petition against the Olympia development project. During the meeting,
my participation involved listening and taking notes of the points that people made.
Someone could argue that those who voiced their opinions were the only ones who
contributed to making a difference. I didn’t line up and express my opinion but I would
say that my presence at the meeting was still impactful. I think that just listening to the
meeting alone can make you a more responsible citizen. Listening allows you to know
more about the problem and can help you to form a stronger opinion about it. This
knowledge can help to convince others of the importance of the problem. Doing this can
motivate them to make a difference amd promote their freedoms. Also, me being there
increased the total amount of people who attended the meeting, making the meeting
more relevant. People might argue that their attendance and/or petition signature is only
a very small fraction of what is needed to make an impact. This argument does seem to
hold some merit but this is not a good attitude to have. If everyone were to have this
attitude no one would have attended and no difference would have been made.
4. I would say that I enjoyed this experience. I have never attended a meeting like this
so it was interesting to see how the meeting functioned. I got to see the problem from
other people’s point of view and how it affects them. One person expressed that this
development plan would require a lot of water for all the people. He explained that he
wouldn’t be able to use his well because it would be bone dry from all the people.
Another person made a good point about how Utah is behind in terms of growth. He
explained that, in Arizona, there are unused freeways that were built to prepare for the
population growth. He concluded that we need to prepare for large growth before
allowing it to happen. The meeting I went to was very one sided so it might be
interesting to attend one with opinions on both sides. I think I would do something like
this again but it would depend on what the meeting is about. If it is about something that
I think is important (or at least interesting) then I might want to go more. Some of the
people that spoke at the meeting weren't even residents of Herriman. People came from
the nearby South Jordan and Riverton cities to talk about an issue that affects a city
different from their own. I don’t think think I would go to a different city’s town hall
meeting unless I had a really good reason to do so.