A new online forum is looking to expand community involvement in local government by creating a platform for citizen input from the comfort of their homes.
The modern day, on-the-go attitude sometimes keeps people from getting involved in their communities.
“To get people who are interested and have qualifications to participate in local government is hard,” Rick Bryant, a participant said.
‘Geodeliberation’ is an online forum, developed to attract and keep citizens engaged in local platforms.
“It boiled complicated issues down to just a few paragraphs that any man on the street could understand,” Bryant said.
Those involved in the forum, like Bryant, meet to discuss a particular topic of interest that local representatives want public feedback on. The group then receives a set of documents, works with experts and deliberates for a few days, before compiling their findings into a community issue review, which will then transfer online for public consumption and feedback.
“It should be concise, it should be compact, it should be trustworthy, so that people who have very limited time and effort, they can understand it, they can form their own opinion,” Guoray Cai, an IST professor at Penn State said.
Cai is the creator of the forum and said opinions will eventually make their way into the hands of local decision makers, via a final citizen’s statement.
“The idea is the online engagement will allow this engagement to go continuously over time, over space, where traditional meetings can not really do that,” Cai said.
“I think it could be part of an answer, really,” Bryant said. “The election showed no matter what side you’re on, election shows us that for government to work, people have to be involved.”
Penn State researchers have been developing the forum for several years, partnering with the State College Borough Council to test it as they debate their property tax proposal.
If you’re directly impacted by that issue and are interested in learning more about the forum, the next information session is in March.