CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: SETTING EXPECTATIONS

When an election is on the immediate horizon everyone has an opinion on what they expect from their candidates or ballot item. Letters flourish – tempers flare: and our local media is happy. After their vote hits the bottom of the ballot box, however, most citizens feel that they have fulfilled their civic obligation until the next election.

This past election, we were again bombarded with terms such as “historic election” and it became popular to have a short term interest in politics. On Election Day, numerous people commented to me, “big day today.” I responded that I thought every day was a big day for politics!

There is much more to civic engagement than a letter and a vote every other year. As a community, we need to constantly communicate our wishes and desires. Our public institutions and elected officials need to have expectations communicated to them with constant reinforcement. Upon the success or failure of the community expectation, praise or criticism may then properly be dispensed. The concept of “speaking at the ballot box” is too reactionary and quite frankly too slow. Thomas Jefferson warned us to not let our rulers keep us so busy that we didn’t have time to think and hold mismanagement to account.

The concept of “government accountability” only works if goals are established. Without proper expectations set, accountability is often morphed into a constant “gotcha” game of cat and mouse. Taking pot shots at elected officials does little to accomplish any actual results.

As an example, voters should expect that our local units of government will not repeat prior overly optimistic budget forecasts. In today’s economic climate, they should expect drastic cuts in the short-term and only minimal state funding increases in the long-term. Likewise, we should expect our city and county government to carefully leverage our tax base for more government good, not just more government.

On the flipside, good government communicates with the public what they hope to accomplish. The public should take seriously activities such as the bridge avenue corridor study, the cities’ capital improvements plan and the project list created by the Shell Rock River Watershed District. These planning activities are their attempts to establish community expectations.

Our community should set expectations of our government and not let the government tell us what our expectations should be. I sincerely believe that community driven expectations will be less, in terms of scope and costs, than if we let the government tell us what to expect.

Upon setting our expectations, we should constantly reinforce and reward them for fulfilling these goals. Officials should likewise expect and invite “feedback” (positive and negative) upon their failure to reasonably meet those expectations.