Citizen Y: The Three Levels of Citizen Engagement

It’s good to have friends in high places.  Or public works places.  I sit on a local government committee with the head of my municipality’s Public Works Director.  Good guy.  Like him a lot.  Straight shooter, hard worker, and just gets-it-done as the local political pendulum and budgets swing back and forth.  He started with public works in high school and now he’s the man in charge.  Let’s call him Chuck.  His mother does. 

Chuck and I have laughed a few times about the different levels of “citizen engagement.”  I don’t think I’m being too presumptuous by categorizing those different levels of citizen engagement thusly:

1. The Drones.  You’ll never hear from them.  They shovel and mow in a timely manner.  They move about minding their own business.  If a streetlight hanging above their median falls over, they assume someone will get to it. 
    
2. The Grumblers.  You know who I’m talking about.  They mean well.  Really.  But if they find out you sit on a committee with the public works director, they start giving you dated incident lists of the times the street sweeper missed their side of the block. Every dangling twig dangerously close to the sidewalk is called in.  They have Public Works on speed dial and are known by name and street.  And temperament. 
    
3. The Scouts.  Civic-minded and reasonable.  If there is an issue that is important to public safety or the good of the municipality, they are on it. 

Bribing Chuck with a cup of coffee, I put the big question to him:  How would he feel about the YourGOV app being utilized in our community? 

His honest answer: “Pretty good.” 

We talked about how it was important for citizens to be engaged.  In the long run, it would help him and his crew to know what was going on in the far corners of the municipality. 

But what about the “Grumblers”?  (now, imagine an eye roll followed by a significant pause)  

Chuck thought about it a while and decided that the streamlined processes of getting reports via email would be a preferable use of staff time versus manning the pothole phone six months a year.  His staff would be able to prioritize YourGOV submissions and all of the citizens, even our neighborhood Grumblers, would know that their concern had been noted. 

Win-win.