Deliberative Polling - An Alternative to Town Hall Meetings

This past Sunday's NY Times features an Op Ed titled, "Town Halls by Invitation," from James Fishkin, Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. He bemoans the recent 'town hall meetings' over health care reform legislation, and their carnage for those of us seeking full engagement in participatory democracy. His proposal for deliberative polling represents an intriguing alternative for us to consider. The Stanford Center has been involved in a wide range of deliberative polling experiments over the years, with excellent results. Citizens participate in a much more informed, less polarized manner, and politicians get engaged input from a more representative sample of constituents.

In our recent Learning Community meeting, we wondered whether citizens might be engaged in the participatory process other than as crisis response; this approach may offer an important pathway towards such engagement.

-Harry

Hello fellow public participators,

I am asking for your help. I have a school district that seems ripe for some effective public participation activity. There is an element of the community that has never felt a part of the district (this goes back to the 1960s when this community first joined the district). This spring the board decided to close the elementary school in this district (the reasons don't really matter at this point). In response, this community is working to detach from the district and is attempting to become part of a different district.

There are community and board members who still harbor feelings from the 1960s decision. And some think there was an agreement made that the community elementary school would never be closed (though no documentation of this decision can be found--seems to be one of those "gentlemen's agreements if it does indeed exist at all).

In addition, there has been high turnover in the superintendent over the few years. There has been four in the last five years.

I would like to help the board and district with this issue and would like to know what you all might suggest. I have no firm ideas at this point, but I do think some kind of community dialogue need to occur.

A recent article in the New York Times had a great quote in it. The article looks at twitter and its use in churches. One of the churches in the article, Trinity Church in Manhattan, opened up their Good Friday service to twitter, and displayed the twitter messages live during the service. As it happened, there was some ‘mischief’:

“The trouble began in the second hour.

Twitter’s interactivity — its essence — made it easy for an anonymous text-messager to insert an unscripted character into the Passion play: a Roman guard who breezily claimed, “I’ve got dibs on his robe.” When another texter introduced a rogue Mary Magdalene, the intrusion only confirmed the obvious: Twitter’s trademark limit of 140 characters per message is no bar against crudity.”

Here is the church’s excellent response:

“If someone chooses to interact with us mischievously, that’s fine,” said the Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, the church vicar. “The opposite of engagement is not mischief, but apathy.”

What a great answer.

Open Government Initiative Seeks Input

The Obama Administration is seeking widespread input regarding the best ways to implement the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government that the President issued in Jan 2009. The Open Government Initiative is collecting dozens of ideas, several of which have bene put forth by organizations such as AmericaSpeaks, National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, IAP2, World Café, and others who have been deeply involved in public participation initiatives. You can participate directly in this important activity: http://opengov.ideascale.com/

If you visit the sites of the organizations identified above, they will suggest specific initiatives that may be worthy of your consideration. AmericaSpeaks has a particularly comprehensive list, but there are LOTS of great ideas being generated -- check them out!

-Harry

Progress on Federal Government Efforts in Public Participation

This week's newsletter from Carolyn Lewkensmeyer at AmericaSpeaks highlights some exciting developments! Take a look... perhaps they can inform our next discussions on the "Seven Core Principles of Participation", as well as other conversations.

-Harry

Community Engagement and Public Education

Hello all,

Yesterday I returned from the National School Board Association's annual meeting in San Diego. My heart was warmed (not by the weather, great as it was) by the large number of presentations related to community engagement. In all, 44 sessions touched on some aspect of community engagement. Some talked about World Cafe and study circles. Others focused on powerful questions and forward focus.

Here in Wisconsin I am working with a district that is reworking its mission statement for the 21st century and is using World Cafe and some really cool work from the KnowledgeWorks Foundation. I will post more on this as the process moves on.

In Minnesota, I am working with the group that planned and presented the community engagement session at the Minnesota School Board Association's annual meeting in January. We are planning a follow-up session for their August meeting.

So, good stuff is springing up all over (sorry, couldn't pass up the pun).

Reframing Public Participation

I hate to bump Harry's inspiring post, but someone has to eventually, right?

I came across a really interesting article written by Judith Innes, UC Berkeley, and David Booher, California State University. The title is "Reframing Public Participation: Strategies for the 21st Century" It is not only an interesting critique of currently mandated participation methods but offers suggestions for improvement. Here is a link to the article:

 http://www.csus.edu/ccp/publications/Reframing_Public_Participation_Final.pdf

I think you will enjoy it!