Who's gonna show up?
If local government does the bare, legal minimum when it comes to informing the public about its work, the community will respond with bare minimal feedback. Is that a good or bad thing?
In local government there’s long been this trope that if people don’t show up to meetings—they must not care. Dating back to my days as a daily reporter covering small towns and villages across Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes region I’ve maintained a spreadsheet. It’s had some additions over the years—like adding municipal YouTube Channels as those have popped up. That’s right. Some communities take the unusual but gratifying step of streaming public meetings.
That said, the core of the spreadsheet is simple: It has a column for the governing body’s name, another for the day of the month they meet, and one for a link to its website—where agendas and meeting minutes are published.
Looking ahead to next week, as an example, there were 22 scheduled meetings. Of those 22 meetings in communities across the Finger Lakes—14 of them did not have agendas published to their websites. They all met the first half of the week, too, so it felt unlikely that an otherwise busy person—say who has a family, multiple jobs, or more than one commitment to juggle (like so many in 2024 do)—would make the effort to absorb those agendas and show up.
For me, this is the context of that original trope: If people don’t show up to meetings—they must not care. After firing off a quick series of emails to clerks and supervisors in those 14 communities, asking if agendas were available, the responses fit my expectations. A couple were responsive and apologetic, most did not respond at all, and what’s more—a couple were immediately defensive. To be clear, everyone got the same email, which simply requested a copy of the town or village’s upcoming meeting, if it existed. There was no implication of negative coverage if the answer was “No, there is no agenda yet.”
That spread is emblematic of local government in my experience. A few outliers at both ends of the good-bad spectrum, and a lot of coasting in the middle. I don’t write stories or cover local government these days. But I still pay attention. Mostly because I serve on some volunteer boards in my own community (the village of Webster) where my entire mantra has become “Be better than what you’ve seen and experienced.”
This felt like a fitting first topic, to relaunch In Focus, as I re-focus on the challenges local government faces in this new world, where social media has made it easier-than-ever for people to be engaged with their community—but no more likely to engage. It’s a two-way street. There’s blame to go around—whether it’s residents or elected officials—more has to be done from both sides to enhance engagement. That’s because now-more-than-ever communities are in desperate need of action and fresh ideas.
Odds & Ends
If someone you know would be interested in reading this (or future posts like it!) consider sharing it with a friend. It’s the easiest way to help get more people talking about these topics, even if they don’t immediately engage. Future topics include community planning—the criticisms residents and elected often have about each other going through the process, the effort that’s actually required to create change in the smallest forms of government, and how micro-decisions over a span of years can drive policy more than comprehensive plans or major directives laid out by electeds.
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