Patch Election Q&A: Stan Bond on Question #5

The question:

How can the village better engage its residents to participate in city government? Very few citizens attend village meetings. How can this be changed? What have you, specifically, done to get more people interested in their government?

Everyone who knows me knows this is one of my hot buttons. I have seen first hand the awesome creativity and power that can be unleashed when citizens are invited into the community-building process. The successful All America City Award application I authored for the City of Carbondale, IL was for citizen involvement and participation. That's what the All America City award of the National Municipal League seeks to reward. It is my dream that someday Montgomery will win this award, too. All America City recognition had a substantial impact on the community pride and industrial growth of Carbondale and it could help us, too.

When I hear comments that none of the residents come to our meetings, those comments just burn me up. Why they don't come is pretty obvious. First, the agendas for the Village Board meetings are posted on a bulletin board at the Village Hall (and on the village website) about 3-3:30 pm on Friday afternoon with the meeting to be held the following Monday. If you wanted to speak at that meeting, you need to have requested to speak by noon on Tuesday preceeding the moment that the agenda is actually displayed on Friday afternoon. 

In short, there is no way you could ask to speak on a topic scheduled for the agenda because you won't know what is to be on the agenda. Worse still, if you simply come to a meeting to observe your government in action and hear them fumbling through a subject that you happen to know something about or about which you might have a pertinent comment, well forget that, too. You are not welcome to speak unless you had requested to do so on a specific topic 6 days prior to the meeting you are sitting in. That's why you see the few who do attend these meetings biting their knuckle or their lip -- it's really frustrating to not be able to participate.

Now nobody is kidding anybody on this issue. If the current board wanted citizen involvement, why would they make it so hard for citizens to get involved? People can tell when they are being invited into a process or being shut out. No one is being fooled here, and busy residents have no desire to waste their time.

The local media don't seem to have it any better. They can publish when a meeting will be held, but they don't know what will be on the agenda either.
I would slow things down by a week. Release the agenda to the media so that they can in turn inform the public of what will be discussed. I would allow the public up until Friday before the meeting to request to speak—or, frankly, I would simply let people speak at their village government meetings without asking for permission. In this way the public knows a week in advance what topics are on the agenda. The board waits one week to vote or deliberate—time they can wisely use to get input from citizens and to answer questions—what's the harm in that? What is it we do that needs to be jammed through without public feedback and comment? Nothing is that important to exclude the community.

Beyond that, I would be pro-active. I would write letters to citizens who might have interest in a topic appearing on the agenda. Such as those affected by SSA's, or bankrupt developers.

People get involved when government reaches out to them and makes itself relevant to their lives. The tremendous power of volunteerism in Montgomery is largely untapped.

I would use village meetings as a forum to recognize the anniversaries of local businesses, to introduce new businesses, to recognize volunteer efforts, to invite school children to come as a class to observe local government, and to recognize individuals with ideas to make our village better.

We need a town hall more than a village hall. I would suggest having four meetings in the four corners of our village once a year. Not at Village Hall, but right there in the neighborhood at a school or church or assembly hall. That meeting would focus on public works status and projects for that neighborhood—when will certain streets be repaired, who decides when and where streets get repaired, water quality, policing, zoning, business expansion—all the issues residents look to their government to provide. Volunteers and businesses from that corner of town should be included and everyone should be encouraged to speak—everyone. The feedback and goodwill from such an outreach should be well worth the logistics of getting Village Hall out of its comfy quarters and into the neighborhoods they serve. I would be more than happy to help plan such events, we did them in Carbondale and they were VERY successful.

I have sent emails to my friends and neighbors informing them of meetings and meeting topics I know they would want to know about. I post notices of such meetings on the website www.montgomerymatters.com and I have prepared and distributed flyers and gone door to door alerting residents to meeting dates and agendas I think they would want to know about. The result of those efforts? Thank you's from countless people who expressed gratitude for being informed. That same gratitude could be directed at the village government for doing the same thing if only they will do it.

Never again do I want to hear comments about residents or businesses not caring to be involved in their community. That is their decision to make, but their government owes it to them to proactively inform them, welcome their comments and genuinely invite them into participatory government.