Comment 69660

By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted September 15, 2011 at 10:35:33 in reply to Comment 69653

I don't think town halls are sufficient to move Hamilton up the ladder of citizen participation in municipal governance. As you say, the bottleneck today is that senior officials are actively working to shield their policy decisions from any kind of public awareness, let alone oversight.

As things are currently.

This seems to be the major challenge for so many people, mired in their deeply-rooted cynicism, in their 'legacy malaise', understanding the quantum shift possible as a result of adopting a wholesale, across-the-city town hall meetings approach. (Again, all of this is on the site. And I have to say that if you're -and I mean this in the collective sense- not interested or willing taking the time to peruse and see what I'm presenting, then it brings into question your willingness to consider potential solutions...and the inevitable result of which is non-movement...yet more bitching.)

Nevertheless, direct public participation in some form (and ideally a variety of forms) seems to be a necessary precondition to any meaningful change in how the city makes decisions.

Wowza. I'm going to have that made into a tattoo.

These days, we're getting to the point where even Council feels alienated from the decision-making process.

This was half of the impetus behind this article. So thanks for reiterating this truth. I guess where we proceed to from here is where our discussions get interesting.

I've always been interested in opportunities for engaged citizens and councillors to recognize common purpose and work together on forming good policy. I think town halls can contribute toward this goal. At the very least, it will quickly become clear which councillors are willing to sit down with their constituents and which ones are not.

At the risk of coming across as being benignly combative (and I dont mind risking this because there's so very much at stake, far more than most are willing to consider), congratulations: you've just (unconsciously?) managed to lend credence to the 'Us vs Them' framing of 'local politics', with 'Them' being 'politicians'.

Nothing about what I've envisioned town halls to be is remonstrative. They're not intended to call our elected officials out on the carpet. They're not meant to be haranguings, they're not meant to be lynchings. Down that road lies nothing but our own spin on the dysfunction that plagues this entire process.

Town hall meetings are not band-aids. They're not cure-alls. They're not supposed to be this grand and glorious new concept, they should have been in play all along.

What I'm stressing in everything I'm saying is this: between residents and their representatives is a relationship. And this relationship has, in the main, never been developed. It's probably never been healthy. In fact, it doesn't really exist (again, in the main) beyond the fact that people are voted into office. I can't imagine anyone in this city who's happy with the general state of affairs. Who feels confident, who feels optimistic, who has faith in their Council.

If we can bring this into everyday life, would you want this status quo in your marriage? In your family? In your friendships, your workplace? I think that if you had the same level of dysfunctionality in your marriage, if you wanted to salvage it, you'd get counselling. To straighten out differences, to open up channels of communication, to make the most out of your partnership.

Town halls are a primary mechanism to this end if we're looking at the partnership of constituents and their elected representatives. In fact, better engagement, clearer communication, more involvement and participation are the only way this 'relationship' will improve.

I know that what I'm suggesting requires faith. So? What's so irksome about being responsible for improving our own lot? I honestly don't get the negative reaction to the notion of effecting change ourselves, without anyone legislating it, of demanding that we move to a better construct, of being in charge of our own destiny,

And frankly Ryan, even putting aside the fact that you were the inspiration behind this effort of mine, something that I've spent over a year looking at and now, attempting to provide it direction and momentum, I also don't get what you're waiting for in pro-actively endorsing it. Of all the things that have transpired in Hamilton in 2011, this confounds me the most.

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2011-09-15 10:38:05

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