Lexington’s first civic assembly was organized Wednesday after a random lottery selected its 36 members.
The panel was selected from a pool of 341 applicants after postcards were sent to 10,000 Lexington residents last year. That pool was then screened for duplicates and other ineligible candidates.
Kit Anderson is the deputy director of CivicLex, which created and organized the assembly. She said it’s a first for the city.
“It's an experiment for us. It's an experiment for Lexington. If it works, I think there's a lot of decisions that could use an assembly to debate and eventually read your recommendation on,” Anderson said.
The organization used a type of software called Panelot to generate a number of different panels that would represent different demographics across Lexington, including age, race, education, income and geographic location. The winning panel was selected from a bingo cage.
The group will meet in March to discuss issues like whether to increase compensation for city councilmembers, and how often the city’s charter should be reviewed.
Multiple councilmembers in the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government have announced they would not be running for re-election this year, in part because of low compensation.
Lexington’s charter, meanwhile, hasn’t been formally reviewed since 1998.
Members of the assembly will be compensated for their time, and will get stipends for childcare and transportation.
Anderson said the process is meant to give a voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t be involved in local government.
“We knew we wanted to have in-depth conversations, but we didn't want to hear from the same people who are already engaged,” she said. “And so using the process like this civic lottery is a way to get people in the room.”
Anderson said they’re now working on reaching out to their panelists and working through logistics before the assembly’s first session March 1.
