Why Civic Engagement Matters

ICMA-10/8/07: “Why Civic Engagement Matters”.

Public Trust in government is dependent on a number of reasons. A preliminary analysis of survey results indicated some interesting results:

Measures of Civic Involvement:

-Voted?

-Volunteer?

-Public Meeting Attendance?

-Participation in Community Life? (Defined as utilization of libraries and parks & recreation)

Questions to determine public trust:

-Received good value for money?

-Pleased with overall job of jurisdiction?

-Is civic involvement welcome?

-Feel listened to?

-Quality of public services (on a 0-100 scale)

-Sense of Community (on a 0-100 scale)

-Community as a good place to live (on a 0-100 scale)

Preliminary results are that only participation in community life (use of libraries and parks etc.) has a positive relationship with Public Trust

Attendance at meetings and volunteerism both had negative relations (higher attendance and volunteerism actually had a negative relationship)

Voting was neutral.

Summary:

-Persons attending public meetings have different views from the general public. (obviously, for officials who want to listen to the citizens, they need to realize that persons who actually attend public meetings may not actually be “the public view”. For example, persons attending the public meetings even recycled less.

Parks, recreation and cultural events had more positive relationship to public trust.

I have the same feeling as the presenters-I felt the relationship between Public Trust and persons attending meetings and volunteers would have been a positive factor in Public Trust. There appears to be a number of factors that could account for this. While I will keep this in mind, (and I have passed this information on), I will remain attentive to this study as it has a lot of possible impact in determining public opinion and public trust.