No council this week, so no council packet to look through.

So, I decided to look back on one of my favorite seriously boring topics around the city of Olympia: the budget and how it comes together. More specifically, the ad hoc budget committee, a one time citizen advisory committee that was supposed to take a close look at the budget and give the city council a fresh perspective. Go here and here for some background from last summer.

Unfortunately, that never happened. Here is an email from Jane Kirkemo, the city's Administrative Services director:

Last year the Olympia Finance Committee did solicit citizens for an ad hoc finance committee.  It was to be a year long commitment.  We received very poor response and decided against forming the committee.  The Finance Committee instead filmed "a conversation" with the committee where they discussed things about the City budget.  This ran on TCTV for several months.  In addition, the finance committee hosted the January town hall meeting, "Balancing the Community Checkbook" where they are continuing to discuss the City's budget.  I hope this answers you questions. 

Unfortunately, we dropped the ball. We as in the citizens of Olympia, because the response to the ad hoc committee was so poor, the city decided to scrap the idea, and rather hold a Town Hall meeting. Even though I wrote about the town hall meeting, I had no idea it was connected to the ad hoc committee.

Though, I understand why the committee was scrapped in favor of the Town Hall meeting, there would have been obvious benefits to a more deliberative body.

1. More deliberative (obviously). My impression of what came out of the Town Hall meeting was that it dealt with impressions of what the city should pay for and how it should raise money rather than and actual educated impression. One night sitting around talking is great, but it isn't citizens studying the budget. I would have liked to see what they would have come up with after months of talking and reading, rather than just a night of talking.

2. Why not try a jury? Juries are the one hardwired citizen involvement mechanism in American government. Everyone needs to participate in juries because everyone has a right to a trial by their peers. So, why don't juries work in other parts of government?

Instead of putting together a committee of interested citizens (who may very well be biased one way of the other) put together a group in a similar fashion that you would put together a jury. Random selection from voter rolls, interview folks for ability to participate, interest level, and bias. And, pay them for their work.

A citizen jury put together a new electoral system in British Columbia. Here are some other descriptions:

Jefferson Center: Citizens Jury Process
What is a Citizen's Jury?