What is “Public Judgement”? (Do we need citizen input?)

Jim Gschwind

            I guess one would say I have an axe to grind as I was interested in showing up for a published budget hearing recently only to be disappointed….again.   Three of us lowly citizens were in the parking lot of the local county commission meeting area since the building was locked without any notice of a cancellation or reschedule on the door.  I called a friend who is required to be at commission meetings and was told quite frankly that the local county commission frequently does this without notice to the public deliberately to avoid confrontation with public opinion.  The thought behind this is, that if you reschedule and cancel enough meetings and leave people disappointed that they will “give up” trying to attend public hearings and leave the commission to do its’ business without interference.  According to the same source, the commission business is not unlike a parent to a child telling them in a condescending tone that they know what is good for us and we know nothing.  We do not have a good track record with our local politicians with regard to backroom crooked deals and openness with the “sunshine law” as the rate of convictions in surrounding counties would indicate.  Does the current public have the right to be treated in this manner?  Do we have any public knowledge to contribute to our elected officials who believe that we must be “cared for” and they know instinctively what is good for us?  What ever happened to the old-fashioned town meetings, in which citizens weighted their choices and expressed opinions on important public policy decisions?

            This made me think about public involvement and of course public “knowledge”.  Most would assume that there is something not quite right about American politics anyway, especially local politics.  Politics, of course, involves any activity necessary for the management of community problems and issues including deliberation as well as voting and influence.  “Politics as usual”, which seems preoccupied with special interest appeals and vote winning, seems to leave out the citizen as the ultimate source of direction for public policy and the legitimate authority in society.  In democracy or in our Representative republic at best, citizens are more than individuals with separate needs and wants, vote casters.  Citizens should speak as interdependent “public” with many common concerns.  Lately too many of us are single issue voters and the problem then is to find those common concerns.

            The public, of course never speaks in a unified voice but as a loosely collected series of communities with some shared and some differing values.  The issues dividing the country are really defined by those differing values, and politicians do not always understand this basic fact of democracy.  Too often, the public is considered a thing to “win-over” to get elected so that the “real business” of the country or county can get done.

            This “real business” involves defining problems, seeking expert advice, learning the “facts”, and choosing the best “solutions”.  Missing from this important formula are public knowledge and judgment.  The public actually knows what is important to individuals and communities, and when citizens have an opportunity to deliberate, an informed public judgment can develop.

            Public judgement is not the same thing as the public opinion  that one might find in quickie opinion polls which are often skewed by the way the questions are asked.  Opinion polls if accurate may tell a politician what to say to win votes, but policy making requires and understanding of “public judgement”.

            I personally believe that ordinary citizens have a wisdom that experts often do not have.  They may not understand the technical aspects of building a bridge, but they know that the increased traffic a bridge would bring into their neighborhood can be a boom/blessing or a detriment depending upon what they are attempting to achieve.  If their neighborhood is primarily mom-and-pop businesses it could be a blessing and it could also bring in a bad element making their living communities unpleasant.  Citizens may not have training in professional education although more and more are opting for home schooling, but they know when their children are learning and when they are not.  Citizens may not understand nuclear physics, but they do understand the health consequences of a nuclear accident.

            So what am I driving at here?  Local politicians should be put on notice that such basic citizen understandings have always been the heart of democracy, making citizen input vital in policy making.  Informed public judgment cannot develop without proper deliberation.  For that purpose I beg and plead with local commissioners to look forward to public input rather than looking for reasons to avoid it.  You work for us…..Remember?

Jim Gschwind

USN/sw ret