Here’s an interesting bit from the Atlantic that Steve Randolph sent me.  You’ll have to read it to understand the following.  I’ve been sitting on it for about 3 weeks now as I’m not sure what I make of it.  I’ve got a long post here and that usually means I don’t have my head wrapped around it.  I saw the author intverviewed on TV as well.  He’s kinda dull in person.  I also think he took a pretty interesting subject and loused up the article by not doing enough legwork.

Whether or not America’s “institutions” are failing is open to debate.  It’s difficult to generalize the problem and just include “everyone” or “those guys”.  Certainly the federal banking institutions were asleep at the switch in th runup to the financial collapse.  However, Congress is just as much to blame for hamstringing effective laws that prevented financial panics for the better part of 70 years.  Even a layman like me understands that having housing appreciate at 100% a year is maybe not natural.  In this much I agree with the Tea party folks: our federal institutions are an unmanageable mess that are being goverened for political ends.  That needs to fundamentally change and perhaps starving them of cash is the way to do it if nothing else will work because make no mistake: anything exists in the Federal government only because Congress wants it to exist.  Elected officials in Washington who have oversight of a particular apparatus of the government guard that role jealously.  As I’m not inside the federal institutions, I’m sure my opinion isn’t all that different from most folks.

I never thought that I, the metal-head, down-with-the-man college student turned business-man would say the following but: I am a part of the institution at the local level.  From my perch inside the local institution I think the problem has another aspect: neglect.  People don’t understand anymore that local governance is not a spectators sport.  Everyone believes that someone else is going to fix that problem.

We had a 10% turnout for the election a few days ago.  The institutions don’t get done what people want because nobody can be bothered.  They put an angry, anonymous post on someone’s blog and call it done.  It’s as though all of the City activities are provided by some mysterious thrid party.  Couple that with very limited reporting of local government issues (an under-reported (har-har) and huge problem) and nobody knows what’s going on.  People don’t have any clue as to the scope of local government activities or how much is spent in the pursuit of such.  I once had a Washington Post reporter apologize for calling me at home, she said “I’m sorry, this number was listed on the city website and I thought it was your City office”.  I replied: “it is.”

I believe that neglect is the main problem because it’s what I see the most.  One of the first votes I took on Council was to spend several million dollars on sewage treatment capacity.  We really didn’t have any option – we had to have more capacity but I remember clearly thinking: “I’m about to spend $4 million dollars of taxpayer money and there’s not a damn soul here.”  It surprised me.  Now it suprises me if anyone bothers to show up – unless it’s a contrived political issue.  Want to do something funny?  Take two of your closest friends and go to a Council meeting along about 7:00 on night.  You’ll probably be the only people in the audience.  Watch as the Council members lean over to each other and say “are those your people?  What issue are they here for?”

Read all the way to the bottom of the Atlantic article – the guy actually goes to a Board meeting.  The board listens to his tale of woe and does something to help the guy out.  Odds are that board had some City staff on it as well as some appointees.  They’re all just people like you and me yet both the person involved and the author of the article are both shocked something good happened.  Local government does work but people have to be willing to put their shoulder to the wheel and make it work.  The more people who have at least some understanding of what’s going on the better.  Engagement drives the process at the local level and makes this work.  If people aren’t engaged and don’t understand, they’ll do what people always do: unplug.  Difficult policy decisions are only possible when the citizens are engaged and that process is going to become central to local governments success in the coming years.