A couple of days ago, NPR had a feature on All Things Considered that was quite intriguing.
One county in Virginia has found a new way to reach taxpayers: an automated phone system calls thousands of residents and asks them to participate in school board meetings.
It has proven successful.
It can be tough to attract an audience for local government meetings. School boards and city councils cannot compete with prime-time TV, cable and the Internet. So, some cities are trying to bring the meetings to the people by phone.
The piece highlights the difficulties people have in making evening school board meetings and how one of the most basic technologies is offering citizens the chance to “vote” on proposal’s and to register their opinions. Could this be a solution for Madison, especially during crucial budgeting meetings?
And while were on the subject of communication, I wonder why the last two meeting agendas have not been emailed to MMSD agenda subscribers and why several “special board meetings” from November still do not have minutes posted?
Robert Godfrey
AMPS 