The City of Milton has earned a prestigious Voice of the People award, an honor bestowed on a handful of governments nationwide for their proactive, effective public engagement as well as their responsiveness to citizens they serve.

This recognition is the only nationally recognized award given to local governments based on resident input and how such views are incorporated into setting priorities, making decisions, and delivering on projects. The International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the world’s leading association of local government professionals, and Polco, a community engagement and civic analytics company, determines who takes home these awards.

Identities of the 14 government winners for 2023 were unveiled at ICMA’s annual conference in Austin, Texas, earlier this fall. The victors span from Southern California to Upstate New York, with larger cities such as Denver, Colorado, and Scottsdale, Arizona, among them.

“These amazing communities are national models for taking on pernicious problems in government,” Polco’s CEO Nick Mastronardi said. “It’s why the VOP awards are so important – these organizations are making the blueprint to better democracy in an era of profound transition.”

This honor reflects Milton’s strong belief in the importance of intently listening to citizens, inviting feedback of all kinds, then ensuring such input informs the City’s values and actions, according to Mayor Peyton Jamison.

“In Milton, effective community engagement is anything but lip service; it’s fundamental to what we do and who we are as a government,” Jamison said. “We succeed as a City because we are intentional, creative, and effective in engaging our citizens. This award shows that we do it better than just about anyone else.” 

The City of Milton solicits and welcomes residents’ views in a variety of ways. They include accessible and inviting social media posts; useful and succinct surveys; charrette and town-hall-type forums; leveraging technology with “live” polling, interactive maps, and more; old-fashioned physical signage; dedicated, detailed project webpages; informal and informational “pop-up” events at busy times and places in the community, from City events to high school football games; and giving people ample opportunities to share opinions and ideas at public meetings that are previewed online in easy-to-digest forms.

Voice of the People Awards are bestowed based not on the size of communities but what their government have done in different categories of public service. A potential factor in nominations was how recipients compare to other governments on the scientific National Community Survey. When last conducted in 2022, Milton ranked in the 97^th percentile in customer service by City employees out of the hundreds of local governments involved in the same survey, as well as in the 90^th percentile when it comes to residents’ confidence in City government. (The next edition of the National Community Survey will go out to Milton citizens next year.)

After being nominated in two categories, Milton won its 2023 Voice of the People Award for “Transformation in Mobility.” This reflects how the City’s Public Works and Communications teams have gone above-and-beyond to effectively connect with, acknowledge, and act on residents’ comments related to how drivers, pedestrians, equestrians, and bicyclists get around Milton. This approach is applied daily to projects big and small, including these in the last year or so alone:

• The next iteration of the City’s pivotal, guiding Comprehensive Transportation Plan (www.miltonga.gov/CTP)
• Milton’s first ever Local Road Safety Plan (www.miltonga.gov/RoadSafety)
• Planning improvements to three Cox Road intersections (www.miltonga.gov/CoxRoad)
• The “mobility” component – including sidewalks, roads, and more – of the Windward Parkway and Highway 9 Strategic Master Plan (which is being created in partnership with the City of Alpharetta and True North 400)
• Creating a roundabout and other improvements around the intersection of Bethany Bend and Bethany Creek Drive (https://cleargov.com/georgia/fulton/city/milton/projects/10801/ts2_2316-bethany-bend-at-bethany-creek-drive-mini-roundabout-_-tsplost-ii)

City Manager Steven Krokoff applauded these and other community engagement efforts, which he said reflect Milton’s citizen-first philosophy that carries throughout the government.

“I’m proud to be part of a City that not only seeks out, but honestly values and uses community input,” Krokoff said. “This makes Milton stronger and an even better place to be.”