DQ 6-2

Responses 6-2

1.

An issue that any city faces, is the budget and where funds will be allocated. I have worked for my employer (city employer) for over 6 years now and I have never once seen an email, letter, flyer or any type of advertisement indicating that the public was welcome to discuss the budget. I personally know that I can access minute entries because of a past assignment that required me to look into this issue. The city I work for is transparent, in that they post the agenda, minute entries and videos to view, should the public want to see what was discussed and decided upon. Transparency is wonderful in government but so is community involvement.

 Involvement of citizens usually has three components: 1) the access to information, 2) the consultation, understood as a “two-way feedback relationship between the citizens and the government" 3) the active participation, a relationship based on the partnership (Dutu, Diaconu & Nisar, 2017). This cannot be done if the community is not aware of how they can let their opinions and voice be heard. Citizens today expect more transparent, accessible, and responsive services from public administration and this expectation will only continue to rise (Dutu et al., 2017). To get the community more involved, city hall meetings, debates, invitations to council meetings, and  budget discussions are all acceptable and should be encouraged. It would benefit everyone in the community to adopt a holistic process, with community participation. 

This would be best for the community because studies have shown that when government officials and the local population work together, citizens develop a better understanding of the ways that their community works and how they can play an active role in helping the community thrive. The behavior of municipal officials also changes after involvement, igniting a desire to offer and begin to use participatory methods with community members to identify and develop activities dealing with the priority needs of the community ("Public Participation", 2017).

Resources

Amalia Duţu, Mihaela Diaconu & Tahir Nisar (2017) Community participation for an open public administration: Empirical measurements and conceptual framework design, Cogent Business & Management, 4:1, DOI:  10.1080/23311975.2017.1287980

Public Participation Guide: Community Involvement in the Management of Environmental Pollution, Tunisia. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/public-participation-guide-community-involvement-management-environmental

2.

In order to address the question, it is important to define or describe the major terms contained in the question. The major terms have been itemized as follows:

1. Infrastructure

2. budgeting

3. self-driving cars

You can combine the meaning and significance of these terms. And address the following question.

Do you think that we can observe self-driving cars operating in an orderly manner in the near future?  Is it feasible? Please provide any logical explanation according to your own style.

3.

Many cities in the United States of America are facing infrastructure issues, along with financial concerns as to how to go about fixing the existing infrastructure, along with creating new. In Santa Maria, I notice many new buildings popping up along our busiest streets. They are creating new places for commercial business throughout the city where there used to be dirt fields.  However, the problem is that we aren't getting new businesses to these new locations. Instead we are seeing existing businesses moving from down the street to the newer building. I guess there isn't any laws that restricts a business from doing so, but we end up with many empty buildings with no occupants. All around the city there are strip mall type infrastructures vacant. What about the old buildings? I say we reclaim or recycle them much like the popular current phase with reclaimed wood. 

According to the article I chose for this assignment, in order to attempt to fix our infrastructure problems we first need to focus on the outcomes, establish a clear point of accountability within the federal government, empower state and local experiments, and attack more private sector funding for these projects (Duvall, Palter, Della Rocca, 2017). In Santa Maria, perhaps there should be discussion as to who or what type of businesses will be allowed to occupy these newer buildings. If Costco is already down the street, then they should not be allowed to close up shop and move to the newer building leaving being a shell of a warehouse that no one else will occupy for years to come. There has to be strict rules and regulattions as to when an exhisting business can and cannot change locations, in my opinion. We should put focus on existing structures in attempt to revitalize the city. Public Administrators for the city should look at the bigger picture. Instead of looking for greener grass elsewhere, they should be focusing on the grass they already have and improve it.

Reference

Duvall, T., Palter, R., & Della Rocca, M. (2017). How to Really Fix America’s Infrastructure Problem. Time.Com, 20. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ulh&AN=122865762&site=eds-live&scope=site