Pros And Cons Of Public Meetings

Improved Essays
Epilogue The “Public Meetings and the Democratic Process” article gives a good idea of what public meetings are, how they are handled, and how the public can take advantage of its opportunities. The evidence uncovered to support this article only comes from a restricted sample, so public meetings across other parts of the country might stray from from what that evidence says. Some examples of this are how public comments are made, time limits for comments, agenda setting, and the formality of the meeting. There are similarities among the evidence and other meetings across the country, though. Examples of this include allowing the public to speak, having board members to listen to the public speak, and advertising the meeting to the public. Public meetings are nationally what the “Public Meetings and the Democratic Process” article said they are. They are government meetings with elected officials that are held …show more content…
To become and expert on public meetings, though, one must attend a wide variety of meetings and read a lot of of varieties of scholarship. All public meetings have their similarities, such as advertising, having officials, and having public comments, but they also have many differences that can only be found out from experience. These differences are easy to notice when attending multiple meetings, but may take a little longer when reading. Still, though, public meetings are a good source for the public to use to convey their ideas and what their communities want. It also puts accountability on the officials because, if they are not working in the best interest of the people, they can be voted out at the next election. In all, some public meetings may not be as formal as one might think and some may be to formal, but they serve a specific purpose. They are there for the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Civics refers to the responsibilities and duties of citizens. The quality of one who is civic is “a personality that seeks out struggles for fairness and gets involved” and the most prominent method to participate is to vote (Nadar, 142). Participation in local regional meetings is a form of civic action. Unofrtunately, mostly only a few, “the core group of committed voters and taxpayers … engage in the process” of influencing the law to arouse advancement (Nadar, 136). The key to civics is action.…

    • 888 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    According to Gawthrop “One reason for confusion and delusion is that the engines of democracy and bureaucracy run on different tracks, leaving from different stations and heading for different destinations…When they do converge, the inevitable result is as Waldo politely suggest a dialectical “happening”, by which I assume he means a hell of a train wreck”(1997, p. 205), this is a wonderful analogy that to me speaks to the problem of combining the two systems while understanding their similarities. Stivers also speaks about the similarities and differences but with a more positive outlook, how a bureaucrat that learns some of the skill from elected officials who have developed interpersonal skills that help form relationships with citizens can help citizens that deal with bureaucrats feel like people rather than a case. This has to do with responsiveness of bureaucrats versus their responsibility to the public, “…most locate the primary roots of responsibility in the expertise and morality of the individual bureaucrat”(1994, p. 365). Knowing that most of the time those in public office must try and keep their personal morals out of their job it is hard for bureaucrats to walk that fine line without the guidance of democracy. One thing that Stivers touches on that none of the other authors did was how a public administrator in either system cannot just listen to the loud voices but to…

    • 1351 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We are a melting pot of different opinions and ideas, and if we choose to ignore those with different opinions, we are losing much of our democracy. In her book A Dinner with Democracy, Cynthia Farrar details an experiment she ran in which she had a group of people, mostly college students and professors from the town of New Haven, eat dinner at her house and talk about politics. These people came from different backgrounds and had varying opinions on a wide range of topics. In this discussion, they enacted a participatory democracy, in which everyone was given the opportunity to discuss their ideas. Many people at that dinner expressed the new ideas they had learned about, and how they were able to look at politics through a broader scope than before.…

    • 1666 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Article Review Most people in today’s society are unaware of their political atmosphere. Political matters have become a great concern to some and less of a concern to others. People are either completely engaged and informed about governmental issues or closed off about what goes on in the political world. The truth of the matter is, it is critical for the people to know and fully understand what takes place in today’s government, due to all emerging issues that we see unfold.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Baker V. Carr Case Study

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Q1 The main inquiry in Baker v. Carr was in the case of redistricting was a legitimate issue the courts could deliver proactively to revise manhandle or a political issue. The state contended that it was a political issue, so the courts had no purview. The case demonstrated a standout amongst the most debilitating in the Supreme Court's history, with the choice held over for re-contention on the grounds that the court couldn't achieve a lion's share choice. Equity Charles Evans Whittaker was so resentful about the case, he at long last recused himself from the choice, and the worry over the choice may have added to his initial retirement from the Court.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chapter three, in the 5th edition of American Government: Your voice, your future, is about how public opinions, attitudes, and beliefs are established and used politically. Chapter three also touches on polling and its use in the political system, government power, and the differences between liberalism and conservatism. As stated in the text, Americans do not share the same concerns when it comes to how involved the government is in everyday living. Statistics offer a closer look at how these differences vary depending on race, sex, and demographic. Specifically, when it comes to the difference in opinion between the sexes, a clear viewpoint is displayed.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Interest groups are known to be corrupt and always bribe secretly elected official. They only look after their desire and their need. I believe they should be tougher restrictions on interest groups, and they should be laws both federal and state level that investigates them thoroughly. If the government does not monitor interest groups closely they will be lots of corruption that will devastate the economy and the credibility of the United States as a thriving democracy. Interest groups mostly finance the campaigns of politicians who are running for office.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The ultimate goal of most politically inclined interest group are to shape public polices in way that it supports the group’s interests, values, or beliefs. This goal is accomplished in two strategies in which sometimes both is used, one is the electoral strategy which is an attempt to influence the selection of public officials. Second strategy is the legislative strategy which is to influence the decisions that elected officials, bureaucrats, or members of the judiciary make. For those interests groups that decide to use the electoral strategy they do so by using tactics such as campaign spending, endorsements, voter mobilization and education, and…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Implementing planning process in proper way helps a lot gaining trusts from the public 1. What are some of your strategies to gain citizen input into your initiatives? We do opinion and hold neighborhood meetings and business interest meetings. First evolve, you’re open with your information, and ask people to tell you what they think or what they want, and then providing opportunities in those public sessions.…

    • 1491 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Rebecca Abers suggested in her book, Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics in Brazil, that the belief that governments and administrations wanting to prove their “competence can rarely ‘afford’ to allow important decisions to be made through slow and inefficient participatory forums” is misguided. Abers cited Porto Alegre, Brazil as an example where the government expanded the process and increased “its control over the governing process.” In the Committee of the Whole case, the goal of the meeting, at its core, was to have a conversation about whether or not the projects met certain standards and whether or not they advanced the City’s comprehensive plan. The structure indicates that this is a result driven, methodical…

    • 1681 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Colonists Grievances

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    After reading and assessing the grievances outlined in the Declaration of Independence, I have decided upon the following three as the most grievous: 1. “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” a. Regardless of the King’s differences with the colonists, they were still his people. That he would cause this much harm and peril to the colonists’ families and homes is an unforgiveable grievance.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The legislative meeting that I watch online was the City Council Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods meeting on November 12, 2015, the length of the meeting was two hours and 49 minutes .The official involved were council-member officials from the San Diego City Council, Police officials and the public. Marti Emerald is member of the San Diego City Council and President Pro Team from District 9, her main role in the meeting was to direct the meeting. Second official was Todd Gloria a member of the San Diego Council from the 3rd district, Mr. Gloria has the mayor of San Diego from August 2013 though March 2014. His main role was to discuss the items of the agenda.…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Arcata City Council Meeting On October 15th, at 6:00 p.m. Arcata held it's biweekly city council meeting. It looks like every other Wednesday the city council get together with other member of the city as well as members of the public to discuss different topics relevant at that particular time. I was unfortunately unable to attend due to work, but they do have videos of all their council meetings available to the public online. So, I was able to watch the meeting from my home at a more convenient time.…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Every nation and country has a way of running itself; a way to govern what is considered lawful and unlawful. In the United States of American, there is a massive controversial debate about whether our democracy is majoritarian or if it is more pluralistic in nature. Some may argue that the mass public, or every citizen in the country, is able to control the government’s actions. Others will state that many groups are able to work together amongst themselves to be able to allow more involvement of the citizens in a majority of the nation’s decisions. Both of these ideas of how our government works are similar in ways as well as different in many other ways.…

    • 1617 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    1. Public policy can be defined as steps that the government or any other organisation takes to achieve a certain goal. In this context, it is the government’s decision to act or not to act on an issue. Governments are able to get guidance and accountability from it. Various factors affect decision making, such as values.…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays