In the March issue of ICMA's PM Magazine,  our Center for Management Strategies practice leaders Robert Vogel of Peak Democracy  and Mike Huggins of Civic Praxis join Evelina Moulder, ICMA's Director of Survey Research to examine recent survey data on public engagement and the tenor of public discourse. 

In their article entitled "The Extent of Public Participation,"  the authors found that while many local government managers believe that it is important to inform, consult, involve and collaborate with  their communities in local decisionmaking, slightly more than 50 percent of survey respondents with council/administrator/manager and council elected executive  described civic discourse as “very polarized and strident, often rude” or “somewhat polarized and strident, occasionally rude.”  They also described low levels of citizen engagement in the work of local government. 

The message behind this article and survey is that we have lots of work to do as local government managers. 

The article suggests that while local governments are encouraging the public to participate in the identification of problems and their solutions, to share their concerns and aspirations, and to provide feedback and develop alternatives as part of the decision-making process, the outcomes of these efforts can be optimized when local managers first ask themselves these six questions:

• What is the readiness and capacity of my organization for public engagement?
• Why am I involving the residents?
• What do I want to achieve?
• What do I want to know?
• What is the role of the public?
• How is that role communicated to the public in face-to-face and online interactions?

Through careful design of comprehensive, multi-faceted, multi-sector engagement strategies and monitoring of online forums, localities can significantly improve the effectiveness of public participation by expanding the number of people participating, restoring the civility of their participation, and ensuring clarity about the role of the public in final decision making.

Robert Vogel of Peak Democracy and Mike Huggins of Civic Praxis are two leading engagement practitioners that are part of the ICMA Center for Management Strategies.   The Center for Management Strategies offers a swuite of services designed to assist the local government manager and his/her team to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness.  Focusing on the latest leading practices, CMS can provide the technical assistance, training and education you need to enhance your work in citizen engagement/public participation, survey and data analysis from such respected instruments as the National Citizen and National Employee Surveys, Priority Based Budgeting, High Performance Organization strategies and organizational improvement work including balanced scorecard and LEAN training.  CMS also offers free organizational assessments to assist organizatons in gauging their readiness and capacity for this work.