When They Speak, Do You Listen?
by Elaine Cogan
Do you listen to what members of the public say at your planning commission meetings? Do people know that you're listening? Elaine Cogan on why this may be the most important aspect of being a planning commissioner.
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Read first few paragraphs of article:
"I know you hear me, but are you listening?" Nearly shouting
with exasperation, a frustrated citizen confronted her
community's planning commission after a particularly heated
public meeting on a controversial zone change.
The chair of the commission took exception to her question. "Of
course we're listening. What do you think we've been doing the
last four hours?"
They may have thought they were listening, but the decision made
by the planning commissioners soon after the meeting did nothing
to convince a skeptical public. The commissioners voted
unanimously to endorse their previous stand on the issue without
any acknowledgment of the public comments they had ostensibly
been "listening to" the previous four hours.
It is possible that no amount of public discussion would have
changed the opinions -- and the votes -- of the planning
commissioners, and it is entirely within their rights to
reaffirm their original opinion. But once they opened up the
discussion to the citizens, they should have showed by their
questions and other responses that they considered the public's
input seriously before they took another vote. "Why did we
bother to come? They didn't even hear what we were saying," is a
reasonable public evaluation of the proceedings that occurred.
The seeds of an apathetic or militant citizenry are nurtured in
such unfertile ground.
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