About ninety people showed up in St. Cloud, and a remarkable thing happened (hoped for, to be sure...but you never know). These ninety people rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They shared written responses. They discussed issues at their tables with like-minded, and not-so-like-minded people. They voted. They agreed at their tables on how money should be spent. Take a look at these pictures from the event by David Simpkins of Minnesota Trails Magazine, and there's no denying how seriously participants took their roles as contributors to public decision-making.
There was a young girl at the meeting. She came with her dad and he kept saying that they were going to leave early. But every time dad wanted to go, the young girl wouldn't let him. She was learning at an early age the power of processes that help find common ground.
So, you might argue, that's much easier to do when there's no controversy. Having money to spend is a good problem to have. But on tough issues, the public is poorly behaved and close minded--take a look at the health care town halls.
But what if controversy is created in the way we develop public policy? Prior to the actual health care proposals, people were pretty united on the need for health care reform. Does the act of selecting a specific proposal without public discussion fuel controversy? If a proposal is made about something that people really care about and that proposal does not reflect their interests, of course they are going to be hostile and upset. The proposal puts them in a defensive position, with little to do but complain or fight. At this point they are losing something dear to them, and their minds are not in a particularly generous position to be open to other people's priorities.Imagine if the DNR had chosen instead to develop a proposal behind closed doors and then shop it around the state in a series of town hall meetings (the typical public process). I think you'd see a lot of controversy. There are actually quite a few different viewpoints about how the money should be spent: motorized trails, local parks, natural resource preservation, horse trails, land acquisition, land acquisition, land acquisition. But because people's priorities are being fed into the proposal development and they have the opportunity to discuss trade-offs with people of differing priorities, there was no controversy at the meeting. Will everyone sing kumbaya when the final proposal is released? Unlikely. But there is no denying that people have a much broader sense of a common mission as a result of being asked to contribute in this way. Here's what participants said when asked for insights from the meeting:
- People came wanting to trumpet their personal projects but left feeling they were involved in something quite bigger.
- I realized I am not as radical as I thought.
- To think "we" and not "me."
- It is fun to disagree and vote.
- Many people are concerned and passionate about our world.
- I was amazed at how serious people were in what they were doing and how they took it all in.
- People are a lot more united on some of these choices.
We have defined leadership as "having the answers." Maybe we need a new definition as someone who works with the public to find the common ground needed to advance the radical changes we need to address our most perplexing challenges: education, the public debt, obesity, poverty, long-term care, social security, climate change, name yours.
you can weigh in on the Legacy Funds at www.citizing.org
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I think you may be right about the creation on controversy. However, I can't help thinking that we expect our elected representative to, in theory anyway, do just this. To roll up their sleeves, negotiate the competing priorities, and do what's best for "we the people." Unfortunately, that system has been corrupted by monied interests and those with the most dollars have a disproportionate number of the votes. And not incidentally, those with the most money can buy more air time on TV and elsewhere to generate controversy.
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