Posts tagged CitizenEngagement

Edmonton provides another Canadian example of a municipality using a citizen panel to help make decisions.  The municipal council struck a citizen panel - drawing on 49 randomly selected citizens - to help make recommendations for its 2010-11 budget priorities.

Edmonton has a pretty extensive public involvement policy that sets rigorous standards for how the public is to be informed and involved; a partnership has also been struck with the University of Alberta to establish a Centre for Public Involvement.

I know the mayor is committed to stepping up our public involvement game here in London town, and an internal process is underway among city staff - so I’m feeling very positive that we’ll see some very interesting public involvement experiments during the next term of Council. I hope that we try a bunch of different ideas until we land on a mix of involvement opportunities that work best for our municipality. 

In the spirit of doing my part to help London become a leader in citizen involvement - and also in the spirit of turning my insomnia into a positive - I’ll keep pulling examples for consideration. 

A big interest of mine is how governments can better engage with their citizens - basically, move closer to participatory democracy and away from traditional Western representative democracy.  But the part I sometimes miss is that citizens also have a responsibility to engage with their government.  It takes two to tango, and sometimes people can use the “my government isn’t listening” as an excuse to stay on the couch, rather than do something to engage and have their opinions heard, and respected. 

So what better day than Canada Day for all of us to make resolutions for the coming year as to how we’ll be better citizens of our municipality, province, and country?  Many of you reading this blog are probably already quite active - but we all have room for improvement.  When I say citizenship I don’t just mean engaging with government; citzenship also includes getting involved with the wide range of non-profits and non-governmental organizations that are addressing gaps that our governments aren’t (or are unwilling/unable) to fill.

My resolution for the coming year is to bring out one unengaged and/or disillusioned person to a civic activity at least once a month.  I think we’ve got a thoughtful and committed group of engaged folks in this town - but I also worry about the inevitable burnout that will occur if we don’t build more capacity.

What resolutions can you make to be a better citizen?  This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are a few suggestions:

1. Social Media: Read or write a blog about news, politics or social issues, and follow political types, active citizens, and non-profits on Twitter.  To start, follow @late2game, @kvl, @nanbran, @jodisimpson, @Matt_Brown_, @brian_frank, @Emerginglondon, @jeffsage, @linzsage, @phubert1961, @s_courti (that’s me!)

2. Traditional Media: Read newspapers (online if you prefer), or watch The National (or other nightly news).  Listen to ‘The House’ or ‘Cross Country Checkup’ on CBC Radio (and podcast.)  I know it can be hard to find the time, but as citizens we should have a base knowledge of current affairs

3. Volunteer with a non-profit or charity: We’ve got more causes in this city to list, and it is usually very easy to get involved.

4. Politics: Help a municipal candidate in the fall - hand out flyers, knock on doors, donate; or, at least pay attention to the election and vote.  Think about sitting on a citizen advisory committee, or putting your name forward for a city agency, board, or commission.  Or, help pull out the vote -you can attend an upcoming change cafe about voter mobilization.

5. ‘Dinner table’ conversation:  Integrate talking about current events into your daily routine.  Really easy thing to do, but also tends to whet your appetite for more civic activities.

So while you sing O Canada, drink beer, hang out with friends, and watch fireworks today, please take a little time to reflect on how you could be a better citizen, and make a commitment to yourself to be more engaged in the year ahead.  I bet your Canada Day resolution will be easier to keep than that New Year’s resolution you made seven months ago!

Happy Canada Day everyone.

It is bad enough potentially having the house you’ve lived in for 51 years expropriated - it is far worse finding out via a general notice in the mail for a public meeting.  It is kind of like finding out that you’ve lost your job because the nameplate changer arrives at your office the day before your pink slip.

As reported by the Toronto Star, several families may have their houses expropriated to make way for new exits for several existing TTC subway stations in Toronto - including a poor guy who actually worked as a subway operator for 35 years .  Cities sometimes need to expropriate homes in the name of progress and the public good, but it would be nice to get a phone call, a fruit basket, or some kind of personal, human gesture rather than a pamphlet in the mail.

Some legal eagle types may argue that the city met its legal obligations to provide notice - I’m sure there were even some other breadcrumbs over the years that could have tweaked the homeowners that this could be a possibility - but sometimes you need to go the extra mile, particularly when decisions can directly affect a neighbourhood or an individual homeowner. 

This is a very extreme example - the kind of FUBAR situation that you write in communications textbooks, or scipts of NBC’s Parks and Recreation - but it does emphasize what can happen when dotting I’s and crossing T’s trumps authentic communication with the public.  A few more Leslie Knopes in Municipal government and a few less Ron Swansons would make a world of difference, in my humble opinion.  

I’m very energized after attending ChangeCamp London yesterday at Museum London.  First off, the fact that about 100 people were willing to give up a Saturday in June to share their gripes, dreams, and plans about London is evidence that people care about this city, and want to be a part of making it a better place.  This fact alone gave me goosebumps - it is very heartening to see so many people who want to get beyond complaining about London and rolling up their sleeves to do something.  With few exceptions this was a room of thinkers and doers; if organized effectively, attendees could be a powerful force of good for the city.

Topics for the day included open data, enhancing citizen engagement, a range of transportation and  pedestrian/cyclist issues, retaining and attracting talent, and other planning issues.  All of the topics were generated by the participants themselves, not predetermined as is usually the case in traditional public consultations - while this made for a chaotic beginning (“you mean WE get to choose the topics rather than having them fed to us.  Um, wow…I need more coffee”) people got into the ‘unconference’ groove fairly quickly.  As a trained facilitator my preference is always for structure and a rigorous process to drive participants to decision, but as the day went on I came to appreciate the format of the day because user-generated topics yielded more passionate exchanges of viewpoints, and will also hopefully mean the action-items created through discussion will have some champions to move them forward.

From my persepective the point of the day wasn’t really to develop well thought out solutions to the priorities identified by participants - we scratched the surface of issues, at best.  What the day did was identify specific priorities shared by the group, allowed change agents in the community to meet each other face-to-face (many of us have been reading each other on Twitter…but human contact really gels relationships!), and finally created a means for those change agents to take the conversations had at ChangeCamp and refine them, research them, and take forward solutions to decision-makers (if you need City Hall on board, existing non-governmental actors, etc.) or just make the change if government or other established stakeholders aren’t needed.

If you didn’t get to participate in ChangeCamp, there will be more opportunities in the future.  You can also check out the ChangeCamp wiki and sign up with the citizen groups that will be created to move action items forward.

You can also read tweets from the day here: #ccldn