Democracy & Open Government
I was just reminded today is Veterans Day, so I immeadiately contacted my stepson who is an Iraq War Vet. Then I looked on OP to post a calendar event and saw that two very special events were taking place tonight, both topics of which I have strong personal and professional interest.
However, I was also disapointed that Vets Day was chosen as the day for these events. A lot of social injustice and other problems have been committed by our military, but I think it would be good to set aside this day as a day to focus on the justice needs of Vets, rather than -- or at least in addition to -- what these two events are about.
I am responding to various comments I've noticed here and there about public involvement in governance. The primary stimulus was David Beck's post Is the 300 East Main proposal worth supporting?, in which he stated, "It seems there is a surprisingly low amount of public focus on a project that will undoubtedly reshape Carrboro," which was followed by some comments about the frequency and openness of the public hearings (here, here, here, and here). Similar sentiments can be found in the posts Increase Citizen Input and Desperately seeking Democracy.
My question is this: By what means are citizens made aware of significant events in our local politics?
Carrboro's new Official Correspondence e-mail archive shows how easy it is to make the public's business actually available to the public. If you do it as Mayor Chilton did - with a Google Group - it's even free. Chapel Hill News editor Mark Schultz says the new system serves the community better than paper archives used by other governments, and it makes reporters' job easier which leads to better coverage in the papers. It's also very easy for officials to use as they just forward or CC e-mails to get them into the archive.
What's keeping Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, and Orange County from following suit? Sometimes I wonder if they wouldn't prefer that we just let them govern in peace instead of sticking our noses into the public business all the time.
In Chapel Hill we have a representative form of government that works better than any place I've lived. When I first got here I joined a citizen committee on Technology. I was amazed at how directly involved I could be. But the experience of being on that board also opened my eyes to the many flaws in this process. Yet I still yearn for more citizen input in our Town.
The recent citizen outcry against a Council vote on health care is a excellent example of what happens if you don't have enough community input BEFORE a council vote. This bit from The Chapel Hill News describes the problem well,
Since the start-up of BlueNC, I haven't paid a lot of attention to local politics. So imagine my surprise to find that the Chapel Hill Town Council voted on Monday to give its members health insurance for life. I can't find the story covered here, so I apologize if this is old news to everyone besides me.
But old news or not, I have to say, I'm stunned.
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