Column - Open House Fatigue

The placards are back.

Yes, that's right, it's time for more city open houses showcasing more options for rebuilding flooded city facilities. We need some more public input, starting at 4 p.m. today at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel.

And what high-quality “public input” it is. Take August's open houses, where people submitted a whopping 150 comment cards, more than one-fifth filled out by city employees, as The Gazette's Rick Smith reported over the weekend. And 56 of those cards indicated support for a brand new city hall, making it the public's “preferred option.” Ta-Da.

Hello, Inch? The city says you're now a Mile. Congratulations.

I don't mean to knock these curious gatherings, which combine “open,” as in open to the public, and “house,” as in “I would much rather be at my own house than anywhere near a city open house.”

I concede they have some value. There is a lot of good information, if you can navigate the maze. Still, I think it's an incomplete process.

There are people and information, but are people actually being well-informed? There are comment cards, but are residents' voices really being heard? And is this really providing valuable direction to our elected leaders? I'm skeptical on all three.

I'm also old-fashioned in my affection for public debate in public. I've never understood why we can't have an hour or two of placard gazing followed by an hour or two of public Q and A with our elected leaders. It's the best of both worlds. People might learn something from their neighbors.

Instead, we get speed dating. “Hi, I'm a

$50 million city government campus. Wanna grab coffee sometime?”

The cynic in me suspects open debate wouldn't lead to the sort of outcome the placard-pushers are seeking. For instance, your average city council member facing a room filled with people telling him or her to forget about a new city hall just might forget about it. While an open house makes it much easier to get a “preferred option.”

And instead of providing direction, open houses make it too easy for officials to hide out in the placard maze with hopes a stacked deck of comment cards will relieve them from having to stick their necks out.

Fortunately, open houses have not replaced old-fashioned elections like the one we just had. And in that election, the guy who was squarely and publicly against building a new city hall won by a landslide over a champion of the open house process. And even if you can't read the placards, the writing on the wall is pretty clear.

Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@gazcomm.com