ROTHENBURGER – The big difference between listening and empowering -- “We’ll listen to you but that doesn’t mean we’ll do what you say.”
ENGAGEMENT, CONSULTATION AND TRANSPARENCY are
big words in governments at all levels right now.
Issues like pipeline expansion, electoral
reform and First Nations rights come to mind but let’s stick close to home. The
McArthur Island issue has made Kamloops City council sensitive to the meaning
of communication with citizens.
There’s another important word to add to the
list — empowerment. It means giving someone the authority to do something.
At this week’s Kamloops City council meeting,
during a report from Communications Manager Wendy Heshka about recent
“engagement” activities, Counsellor Bill Sarai urged — in view of the experience — that people be told their input “is just part of the bigger
picture.” He called public engagement “a double-edged sword.”
Mayor Ken Christian has said, “There’s a big
difference between not listening and not agreeing.” So, expect some sort of warning on the City’s
website which, translated, will mean “We’ll listen to you but that doesn’t mean
we’ll do what you say.”
Sarai and Christian are correct, of course,
that City council can’t always go along with the majority in informal
processes. (If, for example, the majority wants to do something that council
feels isn’t in the best interests of the City.) The question then becomes, so
why ask?
There are three key pieces to any
government’s communications strategy:
... Tell people what’s been done.
... Ask people what should be done.
... Let people decide what should be done.
The first is the transparency piece, and is
as basic as releasing copies of minutes to the public, posting stuff on social
media or issuing press releases, such as, “We’re increasing your parking rates
effective January 1.”
Favourite methods for doing the second are
surveys and open houses and, sometimes, a town hall.
The third is direct democracy, usually in the
form of a referendum, and usually when a lot of money has to be borrowed for a
project. Even then, some referenda results, such as “do you want water meters,”
aren’t binding.
Any good communication strategy identifies
which of the three methods should be used for which kinds of issues and
decisions.
Twenty years ago, the City of Kamloops had no
communications strategy at all. The practice was strictly reactive — wait for a
squeaky wheel and give it some grease.
The City has come a long way since then. It
has a very good communications document and uses it consistently. This week
alone, the City has issued several press releases, hosted an open house on
secondary suites and held a public budget meeting.
As for point one, telling people what’s been
done is pretty straight forward, though there are always new, emerging ways of
doing it. The third option, letting the people decide something through a
referendum — such as whether to borrow money for a Tournament Capital Centre or
a performing arts centre — is rarely used.
It’s the middle one — asking people what should be done
— that causes the most trouble for City councils. Inviting people to contribute
ideas and give feedback sounds easy enough. You post a “Let’s Talk” page on
your website, go out to various community venues and have people post pins or
little stickers on ideas, or even hold round tables.
It’s when local government ignores that input that the
trouble begins. It’s then that accusations of “you already had your mind made up!”
are heard. People feel a promise of empowerment has been broken.
In the corporate world, “empowering”
employees is a concept sometimes used as part of internal engagement. A manager
gives an employee or group of employee’s responsibility for carrying out a
certain task that involves independent decision-making and possibly even
spending.
For example, a subordinate or team might be
invited to decide what kind of furniture to buy for the front lobby. The boss
might not like the orange Art Deco the group chooses, but will have to decide
whether to stay out of it or overrule and order up French provincial.
A City video for its Let’s Talk page says, “We want to empower you.” Hold on. That
might be where the message has gone off the rails. Clearly, the public thought it was being
empowered on McArthur Island when it was only being consulted. The latter is
about an opportunity to influence one or more council members’ thinking, not
having the final say.
Playing into the picture is a new committee
structure adopted by council this week. It boils down several dozen committees
and commissions to just five, although those five can appoint their own work
groups to give input. It remains to be
seen how long-standing boards like the Heritage Commission, Graffiti Task Force
and Advisory Committee for Persons with Disabilities will fit in to the new
structure.
One of the five new committees is called the
Community Relations Committee. This committee partially embraces a proposal (at
least in part) from former Councillor Donovan Cavers, who wanted a “public
engagement advisory committee” to act as a sounding board for issues and engage
with citizens as a sort of ombuds group.
(His notice of motion on that idea, by the
way, was brushed off without comment — “died on the order paper,” as the mayor
put it — by council on Tuesday, the same day the new community relations
committee was approved.)
If you wade through the pages of bureaucratic
language in the terms of reference for the new committee, you’ll find its
mandate has a lot to do with policy and planning reviews and “other tasks as
assigned by the Mayor or Council.”
The Armchair Mayor, Mel Rothenburger |
And, it seems a bit odd that members of a
community relations committee other than the chair or staff liaison aren’t
allowed to talk to the media. Still, the
fine print does mention public engagement. The committee has good people on it
— Counselor Kathy Sinclair is chair, with Mayor Ken Christian and Counselor
Sadie Hunter as members.
It has the potential to do good stuff if they
remember one important thing about public engagement — don’t promise what you
can’t deliver. And, if you’re going to ask for opinions, you’ve got to try very
hard to go along with them -- at least some of the time.
Otherwise, don’t call it empowerment.
I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor. Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of
Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion
website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board.
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