Reinstating CACs is no Panacea for What Ails Community Engagement
On February 4, 2020, City Council voted to withdraw support for Citizen Advisory Councils (“CACs”). CACs were “self-selecting” engagement groups dominated by older, wealthier white residents. The “self-selecting” nature of CAC’s was one of the primary reasons why the prior Council defunded them in 2020. While varying across Raleigh, overall CAC attendance was spotty and not representative of the City’s diverse population. This is consistent with recent research findings suggesting that self-selecting community engagement models tend to overrepresent the interests of older, white, wealthier single-family homeowners. Even with the use of virtual community meetings in the aftermath of COVID, this overrepresentation persists.
To be sure, Raleigh’s approach to community engagement has improved since establishing the Office of Community Engagement. The City is using new engagement tools and practices like Community Connectors and a community engagement vehicle to meet people “where they are.” Unfortunately, the City still relies too heavily on self-selecting processes like online surveys, community meetings and town halls.
Since defunding CACs in 2020, four new Council members were elected due in part to campaign promises to revive support for CACs. On February 6, 2024, Council voted unanimously to reinstate support for CACs, including access to technology allowing all CACs to hold virtual meetings. To watch that part of the Council meeting where the vote to reinstate CACs occurred, go to the 1:47:15 mark of this video.
Reinstating CACs certainly will help the City exchange information with more residents than would be possible without CACs. However, as long as it relies primarily on self-selecting engagement tools, Raleigh’s community engagement will continue to overrepresent the interests of older, wealthy, white homeowners and underrepresent the interests of historically marginalized communities, low-income residents, young people and renters.
While there is no perfect community engagement model, some communities are using a technique called citizen assemblies (also sometimes called lottery-selected panels or deliberative democracy). Citizen Assemblies are an emerging community engagement tool some cities are using to develop and implement public policy.
In its simplest form, Citizen Assemblies use random sampling to identify a pool of potential participants across a specific set of predetermined demographic characteristics. Once the participant pool is identified, people within the pool are invited to join the engagement process using a variety of outreach techniques. The engagement panel is officially established once the desired number of participants reflecting the specified demographic profile agree to serve.
Citizen Assemblies can be used for almost any community engagement effort. To ensure consistent participation in Citizen Assemblies, particularly by those from low income and historically marginalized communities, some cities pay stipends, offer free childcare and provide transportation. Eugene, Oregon recently used this approach for its Missing Middle Housing regulatory reform effort (click here for additional information about this engagement effort). Petaluma, California used a similar model to gather input about the future use of a large parcel near its downtown formerly used infrequently as a fairground. Toronto used it to develop the Metrolix Regional Transportation Plan.
Citizen Assemblies lead to broader, more diverse community engagement. Traditional public engagement, like public input sessions, town halls and online surveys attract narrow, self-selected groups of residents that are unlikely to reflect the diversity of a community. Citizen Assemblies, on the other hand, ensure that a representative sample of the community is involved in the process. This leads to a more inclusive and equitable decision-making process.
Citizen Assemblies also allow for immersive deliberation and discussion. Citizen Assembly members learn about the issue from multiple perspectives. They can ask questions and engage in dialogue with one another, not to mention the community’s professional staff and consultants. Residents learn about the problem or issue at hand, consider different perspectives, solutions and trade-offs, and then make informed recommendations. This is a departure from the typical engagement process where residents are asked to respond to a plan or draft proposal prepared in advance by consultants. In other words, Citizen Assemblies shift the engagement paradigm from “us versus them” to “us versus the problem.”
Citizen Assemblies are not intended to replace traditional self-selecting engagement tools. However, they provide a broader perspective to traditional self-selecting engagement efforts.
Raleigh has a prime opportunity to use a Citizen Assembly as it decides how to redevelop the DMV property. Council acted boldly to acquire the property and now it should continue acting boldly by directing staff to implement an engagement process using a Citizen Assembly model.
For more details about Citizen Assemblies, consider these additional resources:
Political innovation as ideal and strategy: the case of aleatoric democracy in the City of Utrecht
Deliberative Democracy Toolkit: https://www.oecd.org/governance/innovative-citizen-participation/
Citizen Assemblies: https://citizensassemblies.org/
Deliberative Democracy: https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/04/deliberative-democracy-depolarize-america/
Deliberative Democracy: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/unity/2021/04/19/deliberative-democracy-a-classical-antidote-to-democracys-modern-ills/
Catalog of projects using LSP’s/Deliberative Democracy: https://participedia.net/collection/6786