Does Interacting with Elected Officials and Bureaucrats Matter?

Disillusioned citizens: Had some interesting reaction to my recent city council blog post about a controversial action in Lakewood. Basically, state government is throwing Lakewood under the bus - or in this case, under the train - to reroute trains through town for benefit of Seattle to Portland commuters to shave six minutes off the route.

The pros and cons don't matter in terms of this posting. What matters is the reaction I got from a couple folks about
my blog posting that encourages people to write state and federal officials.

Here are quotes from some of the responses ...

I would appreciate your suggestions as to the most appropriate next step and assistance in preparing a letter format we can use so the message from our neighborhood is consistent and articulating our concerns clearly. We are also concerned that we are careful not to undercut the efforts being made by City staff to force change upon the State DOT.

So far only one neighbor has expressed doubt about our opposition and he said it is useless and unwise to oppose the state. Yes, I did point out that we had a revolution to establish our right to oppose government heavy-handedness, however, he seems not to think it relevant (must be a tory!!!).

I am so disturbed by this news, that I am physically ill. The future looks bleak for us in the Nyanza area. I have written to every single person Walter Neary suggested on his webpage. Will it really matter?

Notice the ideas running through here.

There's a concern about whether a citizen writing a letter could somehow interfere with what government is doing.

There's a concern that it is useless and unwise to oppose a government.

There's a concern that corresponding with officials may not matter.

I've spoken to many people who've been even more direct; they don't see the point of commenting to government.

To me, there's a huge tension between these real citizens and all the "stuff" I see floating around the Internet: breathless Twitternouncements with the hashtag #gov20 and references to stuff like open source data and Drupal. Heck - we need to get citizens thinking their participation even matters. Can the Government 2.0 movement do that? Or all we all running around Tweeting, Facebooking and generating meetings and workshops for our own amusement?

The real question is whether our use of these tools will rebuild credibility with citizens. That's the real challenge and the real goal.

Photo credit: Peter Halen and The Tacoma News Tribune.