Engagement is a Two-Way Street

-
The Daily Review reported today that the City of San Leandro is moving ahead with plans to poll voters on their support for new tax measures.
City Manager Steve Hollister has contracted with the Lew Edwards Group, of Oakland, to analyze different types of income sources and how much money could be raised. Once options have been developed, Godbe Research, of San Mateo, will conduct the polling. The questions and number of people to be questioned have yet to be determined.
The cost to the city will be between $25,000 and $30,000. In addition,
The Lew Edwards Group now is setting up meetings with the Chamber of Commerce and other interested parties. Once the poll is completed and survey information is compiled, the city will evaluate short- and long-term financial strategies.
This does not constitute listening to and engaging the community in developing solutions for the city's fiscal crisis. As noted by Viewpoint Learning,
In the past top leaders did not need their followers to work through issues. They could work through issues by themselves and expect others to implement their decisions. However, if decisions on today's most important issues are to be accepted, understood and implemented effectively, leaders must engage many more people in working through.

Polling voters and talking to a select group of individuals will not bridge the mistrust and disconnect that exists across the state, and in San Leandro, between citizens and the government. As explained in a 2005 report by Viewpoint Learning entitled "Listening To Californians: Bridging The Disconnect," a profound, all-pervasive climate of distrust exists throughout California. This mistrust shapes how citizens view solutions offered by government.

Citizens see waste, inefficiency and abuses that justify their lack of confidence in government, and believe greater openness and accountability are needed. Elected officials, on the other hand, "too often see a public that wants everything but doesn't want to pay for it" and "with little to contribute to policy-making."

Thus, when it comes to significant decisions requiring public support, such as new tax measures, elected officials do not undertake the time consuming and ultimately more meaningful process of listening to and engaging the community. Before the City of San Leandro spends $30,000 on a poll, it should do what the school district did in 2005: conduct community forums where the public is invited to ask questions and offer their input and administrators are present and provide answers. In addition the school district conducted focus groups of employees, parents and community leaders on the pressing issues facing the district.

A poll only provides answers to questions the elected officials wish to ask. What the public wants is for city hall to listen first to their concerns. The public wants to ask questions of city leadership and offer input on a wide range of topics. If that does not occur, San Leandrans will not feel they were brought into the process of finding constructive solutions to the city's fiscal crisis. Mistrust and cynicism of city hall will increase.

Comments

  1. timhJune 30, 2009 at 3:16 PM

    I've found that the City of San Leandro's processes and their implementations are neither set up for, nor promote, getting the public's input.

    I've seen "the process" ignore the input generated by the public over and over, from traffic issues to the TOD, but as the legal hoops are jumped through the job is considered complete, despite the continuing lack of effectiveness in actually reaching the public and getting meaningful dialog.

    I suspect this has evolved over the years from the city excluding it's own population from the process, as noted by the study in your post.

    Whether it was acceptable in the past is irrelevant, it should not be tolerated today. There are too many mechanisms by which to reach the public and gather their input to brush that responsibility aside.

    Where there's a will, there's a way, but I suspect there's no will to tackle this most important problem of all.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Looking Back: Measure B Transformed San Leandro Public Schools

-
Image
Our tax dollars can make a real difference in the lives of our children and prosperity of a community. Twelve years ago San Leandro High School was grossly overcrowded leading to discipline problems and undermining academic performance, no theater in the school district existed for student performances, and many restrooms at schools were in such poor condition that the students would not use them. That all changed in August 2006 when the School Board voted to place Measure  B on the ballot. The largest school construction bond in San Leandro’s history, Measure B received overwhelming support and led to the physical transformation of San Leandro public school (combined with the passage of two subsequent bond measures and one earlier measure). With better public schools, San Leandro has become a more desirable city to live, helping attract and retain families who previously would have never moved to San Leandro or moved away when the children were in middle school. Here is a
Read more

How Juan Gonzalez won the San Leandro Mayor's office at the end of the counting of votes

-
Image
On November 18, 2022, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters released the vote count for nearly all votes cast in the November 2022 general election. After being behind for the entire vote count, Juan Gonzalez effectively won the race.  How did this happen? First, from election night through 11/17, the Registrar had reported a total of 13,746 first choice ballots in the Mayor's race. On 11/18, the number of votes reported increased by 6,436 to 20,185 total votes. That was a nearly 47% jump in the reported votes. Another way of looking at the data is that prior to 11/18, all previous vote counts released by the Registrar did not include roughly one-third of the votes that were cast in the race. Second, Gonzalez  decisively took the lead in the the first choice ballots that were released by the Registrar on 11/18. Gonzalez took these votes by 39% to 33% margin. With the exception of the first vote count released by the Registrar on election night right after the polls closed when Br
Read more

San Leandro's Unsustainable City Budget

-
Yesterday, I attended a meeting of the San Leandro City Council Finance Committee. The committee consists of Mayor Santos and Councilmembers Prola and Gregory. Gregory was absent. In short, if significant action is not taken, the city will burn through all of its reserves, including eventually reserves for natural disasters and other emergencies. By 2015, San Leandro could join the City of Vallejo in declaring bankruptcy. Summary of Finance Committee Presentation Perry Carter, the Interim Finance Director, gave an update on the budget. In analyzing a budget, you need to examine at least three years of data - the previous, current and next fiscal years. Carter first reported on the "preliminary actual" numbers for the fiscal year which just ended on June 30, 2009. Illustrating how quickly the city finances collapsed last year, the original city budget for fiscal year 2008-09 assumed $76.2 million (hereafter simply "M") in revenues and $81.6 M in expenditures.
Read more