Ask most city governments how hard it is to get their citizens to show up to one of their meetings, and they’ll tell you it’s like pulling teeth.

Getting Hispanic residents to participate, despite language barriers and cultural differences? Well, that’s just about impossible, they’ll say.

The Hispanic Advisory Committee in Hermiston has proved those naysayers wrong.

Seventeen people showed up for the committee’s meeting on Monday — a turnout that would signal a controversial agenda at a city council meeting but was actually a low one for the committee, which sees a drop-off in participation during harvest season.

The key, chairman Eddie de la Cruz said, is making everyone feel like their participation is vital.

“When you make people feel important, they’re going to talk to you,” he said.

The 2010 Census showed 35 percent of Hermiston’s population was Hispanic, but that doesn’t include undocumented residents. The Hispanic Advisory Committee, formed in 2012 as an official advisory board to the city council, has found success in representing Hermiston’s Latino population.

The recipe lies partly in the format of the meeting.

De la Cruz said the committee quickly found people were too intimidated to stand up at the microphone and speak in front of a public meeting. So they changed up the format — people are encouraged to engage in a back-and-forth dialog with the committee at any time during the meeting, and they can do so from their seat without introducing themselves officially.

Conducting the meetings in participants’ native Spanish doesn’t hurt either.

“People show up, we tell them ‘We’re going to take the time to listen to you in Spanish, to talk about the problem, and we will get to the bottom of this,'” de la Cruz said.

When the city’s soccer league complained that bad communication between it and the city had left them without adequate practice fields, the Hispanic Advisory Committee helped broker a deal between the league, the city and the school district for new soccer fields at Rocky Heights Elementary.

When a resident complained to the committee that the neighborhood behind Wal-Mart was dangerously dark, the committee worked with the city to get additional street lights put in.

When someone brought up a safety concern about the intersection of Baggett Road and Highway 395, the committee convinced the Oregon Department of Transportation to update the intersection to make it safer for trucks pulling on and off the highway.

Other accomplishments include getting the Chamber of Commerce to start the Latino Business Network and planning the city’s Cinco de Mayo event.

Clara Beas Fitzgerald, who joined the committee a few months ago, said she applied for the seat because she is impressed with the work the HAC is doing and thinks it’s important to provide a “stepping stone” between Hispanic residents and the city council.

“It’s important to have a committee that people can attend in their own language and make sure they understand,” Fitzgerald said. “People have a lot of questions. It’s not a passive gathering where we do all the talking.”

The HAC recently formed a voter registration committee with the goal of registering 500 new voters by October in preparation for the driver’s card referendum on the November ballot. They have already gathered more than 100 registrations.

After the November election is over they plan to shift their focus to an education subcommittee to encourage Hispanic members of the community to further their education.

Meetings of the HAC are held mostly in Spanish, although someone on the committee pauses every couple of minutes to summarize the proceedings in English. De la Cruz said the language barrier is something that keeps Hispanic residents from showing up to city council meetings.

“I tell them our meetings are in Spanish and they go ‘Oh really? I could do that,'” he said.

On Monday the committee discussed the bilingual pay raise at the Hermiston Police Department and openings for family wage jobs that require both Spanish and English skills. Members also gave updates on the latest statements from President Barack Obama about immigration reform, and answered questions about the driver’s card referendum that would give undocumented residents of Oregon the ability to drive legally and insure their vehicles.

Last year the National League of Cities recognized Hermiston, along with Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah and Lake Worth, Florida, with the 2013 City Cultural Diversity Award. The formation and success of Hermiston’s Hispanic Advisory Committee was one of the key factors cited in giving Hermiston the prestigious national award.

“Hermiston is one of the very few cities that has a Hispanic Advisory Committee backed by the city,” de la Cruz said.

He said the goal of the committee isn’t to divide the city but to unite it by bringing Hispanic voices to the table.

“We live together, we work together, we’re all one community … HAC is opening a lot of doors for our community to work together as one whole community,”de la Cruz said.

Fitzgerald said the committee isn’t an attempt to appease a small minority, it’s an advisory board that represents more than a third of Hermiston residents.

“The Hispanic community needs representation in the city,” she said. “There are enough Hispanic residents. We need to have a voice.”

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Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4536.