Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Listen To Me!

I used to enjoy browsing though online discussion groups, but now I find it just makes my blood pressure rise. It's not because I disagree with what people are saying, but because they have chosen the most inefficient way to get their message across. Local politics works much more directly. I'm baffled as to why someone would offer an opinion or lodge a complaint about city operations on a nationwide discussion group when the City Manager and all City Council members have listed phone numbers and email addresses. You'd probably be surprised how little unsolicited input we get. I see about one email from a resident per month, and at least half the City Council meetings have no one offering public testimony. Most of us actively solicit public input on upcoming issues. I'll frequently ask people I meet at a barbeque what they think about x, y or z, but that doesn't mean I get your take on the issue.

Local government sure isn't about power or money-- we don't have either. So we listen pretty hard to all the direct input we get. If you're looking to do more than just vent, skip the online groups and go directly to the people who are making the decisions. You may actually get what you want.

Some brief notes on speaking at a public meeting: Every public official knows how hard it is to stand up and make a public address, so you'll get points just for having the courage to stand up. I'm uniformly impressed at how articulate and expressive people are when they rise to speak at our meetings, so I'm not sure I need to offer much advice. I'll just offer a generic suggestion about giving testimony: consider your comments from the point of view of the public official. We need to understand what you are saying, why it is important, and what we can do about it. It's easy to wander when you're passionate about something, but if you stray off point we will probably follow you, and while we may have an interesting discussion we'll probably never find our way back.

Which brings me back to my point: If you want to influence your local government get off the soap box and contact decision makers directly. It works.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Sorry, Arthur. The city manager doesn't return calls. So, I have gone to internet forums to get my views heard. http://www.nwkite.com/forums/t-12040.html I am trying to find your email right at this very moment with no luck so far. maybee with a few more minutes online? I sent Bob Francis another message (email this time) today.