March 15, 2014
Slick showmanship beats serious logical argumentation every time! When this showmanship is punctuated by internet wizardry, the kind of objection that am making seems both tedious and a buzzkill. "We have the man with a plan to bring democracy right into our little city..." this is a variation of the play and film of the 1970s, The Music Man, of how a traveling flim flam man convinced poor cities to invest in bands instead of books.
Most smaller cities in the United States with less than a million people are in serious financial trouble. While cities have different issues, having various average wealth and diversity of economic-social demographics, the one common pathology is debt incurred far beyond their ability to service. Two cities in California, Bell and Stockton are examples of extreme disasters, but there are many others that are facing sacrifice of provision of vital public services to pay pension obligations that were never funded.
I will focus on my city of Encintas CA, not that it is the worse or even close. This paper is about a specific change in direction, a modification of the movement based on the belief that governance, be it of a nation or a town, is something to be relegated to professionals who will create the "glowing city on the hill" by the application of dispassionate scientific rationality. The new twist of this century old "city manager" system is that this can be improved by tapping something that really doesn't even have a name, since it is represented by technology moving so fast that just keeping up defrays the kind of analysis this essay is attempting.
The slow evolution of human communication, the glue that holds aggregations of peoples, from tribe to nation, together-- beginning with the spoken word, to cuneiform writing, the printing press, books, magazines, radio and then television--within the historical micro second of a decade has been transformed by the device we call the smart phone with universal wifi. This technological revolution is transforming our world in ways we can only begin to understand in real time. An example is "Google Translation," not just another whiz bang app, but one that is reversing God's curse on mankind for the effrontery of building the tower of Babel. This bit of technology demolishes his punishment that we would all speak languages that are unintelligible to others.
This disorienting technological revolution has consequences that are a mix of good and evil, both the promise of utopia and the danger of loss of essential parts of our very humanity. The current adaptation of this technology in Encinitas is a radical expansion of a version of E-Government, (the link to the Wikipedia article one of the efficiencies that allows this essay to incorporate tens of thousands of hours of other"s thinking and writing about this phenomenon.) The city is adopting this by not acknowledging the dangers described in the Wikipedia link and assuming, erroneously, that if it "doesn't work" it can simply be reversed when the one year contract expires. In my article that defined the specific defects of the proprietary software being installed by Peak Democracy Corp., I say that this is a tilt towards "direct democracy" where citizens decide each issue rather than elected officials.
Now, I realize this was an incorrect simplification, and that by creating an illusion of increased citizen participation it becomes antithetical to that principle by allowing actual power to reside elsewhere. True direct democracy is exemplified by last year's city Proposition A that required a referendum for certain future high density developments. This was passed by a vote of the citizens in the face of well financed unanimous opposition of the elected city council. This could be construed as an "in situ" test of the premise that representative local government actually represents the will of the people, which in this case was shown to be false. From this it follows that the adaptation of the powerful tools of E-Government that will be in the control of elected officials will not be in the spirit of direct democracy, but a potent weapon against it.
There is a further danger that is invisible to the enthusiasts of this version of E-Government; that because of the novelty and visual dynamism of this technology even the elected officials become passive, not presuming to have the ability to challenge such technological wizardry. In the long presentation by Mike Cohen the President of Peak Democracy Corp. he said that not only would he provide the technical software but would advise and train the staff on the wording of the questions to be posed to the citizens, and then will aggregate, possibly modify and deliver to the council the wide diverse communications in a condensed digestible form. He was the wizard, as the members of the council were transfixed by his promise to deliver direct democracy in a box for the mere cost of a tenth of one senior employee.
The Terms of Service (TOS) required of most computer services are often
boilerplate, such as describing reasonable warnings against using
copyrighted material that are merely informational. Given the highly
personal nature of political views that are solicited on these sites,
the protection for abuse must be iron clad, which it is not in my view.
But more important than my own concerns is that as of this date there
has been no mention of this TOS being subjected to a rigorous evaluation
of whether they meet the higher bar of the Ralph M. Brown open meeting
act. One example of is clause 7.3 which is a right to modify filter or
refuse any comment by a citizen, which as of now they are doing in a
responsible way, but need not according to this agreement. Section 8.2
gives SD the right to use your comments to promote their software
program. Section 13 explains that on the pages that describe the issue
to be discussed on this site, they may insert advertisements for their
own income, and furthermore they will be targeted individually to you
based on your profile garnered from your own comments. It's amazing
what software venders can get away with when no one reads these
The contract for the software and services of Peak Democracy Corp. was
signed without the knowledge of two or possibly the entire elected
member of the city council. Some were mildly surprised that this
presentation was only delivered after the fact, while others were
clearly disturbed. Two members voted to abstain, and were told by the
city attorney that such an abstention in these circumstances would be
recorded as a yes vote. Ironically, this abrogation by the city's
elected officials of their responsibility for this major change is done
in the name of increasing trust in government. Mr. Cohen presentation
was riding on a wave of illusions and truisms that seemed to possess all
the magic of the smart phone-Internet-WiFi era. Not one of the elected
officials made any reference to the body of literature exploring the
criticism of this movement, and there was absolutely no evaluation of
the nature of the contract required between every citizen and the owners of the
new Peak Democracy software.
In this discussion there was no reference to the treading on the edges of the Ralph M. Brown open meeting laws, which can only be avoided by great effort by all concerned with using this product. And even if there is no lawsuit, the limited use of this product by excluding those who do not choose to allow Peak Democracy to use their words to target advertisements to them will further divide and alienate the citizenry, all in the name of improving the image of city hall. If read carefully, their required Terms of Service go beyond the legitimate boilerplate, which makes this an illegal requirement to address a public municipal meeting.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of staff time was spent
exploring various venders of E-Government products and services, with
minimal involvement by elected members of the council or citizens. With
no sense of embarrassment over the hubris of making such a decision
unilaterally, the City Manager closed the deal, and the City Council to
this date has not begun to have the vital discussion over how this city
shall engage the revolution of technology that is upon us.
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Extensive links to published articles about Peak Democracy and details of the council action are appended to "Peak Democracy" --unexamined effects on City of Encinitas"
