What is the Town Hall process?

The Arizona Town Hall process focuses on bringing diverse perspectives together and creating a consensus report that prioritizes solutions and empowers participants to lead implementation efforts.

Town Hall topics generally are chosen at least a year in advance. Arizona's public universities work with a diverse group of non-academic professionals to develop a comprehensive research document that serves as the basis for discussion.

Informed by the background document, Town Hall participants answer specially prepared questions that are designed to forge solutions that incorporate diverse and multi-partisan perspectives. The process for creating the report varies slightly depending on whether the session involves more than one panel or multiple days of discussion. For example, the three and a half day statewide Town Hall concludes with a plenary session where all panels come together to adopt a final report of recommendations. That recommendations report is then bound with the research report and made available to Town Hall members, elected officials (including the Arizona Legislature), public libraries and other leadership organizations. Reports are also available to the general public. Many of these reports are available for download from this website.

As a neutral facilitator of these sessions, the Town Hall as an organizations does not implement the recommendations. However, many Town Hall recommendations are subsequently enacted due to the leadership of Town Hall participants. 

How are the topics chosen?

At the beginning of each year, Arizona Town Hall members participate in a topic preference survey. The top 3 or 4 topics from that survey are presented at the Annual Meeting (generally held in June). Town Hall members then participate in a mini-Town Hall discussion where they prioritize and vote on future topics.

How do I participate?

The Arizona Town Hall holds many engaging community programs throughout the year. Most programs are open to the public although participation as a panel participant in a community or statewide Town Hall may be limited where it is important to ensure that all perspectives are appropriately represented.  When space is limited, current Arizona Town Hall members receive preference.