Think about issues of domain sizing.Originally Posted by LDAHL
My county of 15,000 people has immense trouble with the citizens being able to absorb and properly comment upon a whole wave of new land use/environmental regulations we are in the process of adopting. Even though we have a very involved and educated citizenry, the size of the material is so immense, and the legislation so dense, and the process so long and cumbersome that it is difficult for a normal citizen with a normal job to participate in any meaningful sense.
I am the head of the commission hearing the legislation and taking public testimony and trying to recraft it to meet the needs of the citizens and the requirements of the law, and I spend, outside of meetings, perhaps 25 hours a week doing prep work. And I have a personal team of advisors I can call upon to assist me with the legal and scientific issues.
So even at the county level, it is difficult.
At the state level, it is a horror show, and when you get to regional or national politics, I don't see how it functions at all.
I think small local governments are the only ones that have a real chance of being remotely responsive to the citizens.
I also think people need to rethink their ideas of proper time scales for policy development and implementation. Even locally, when we rush through legislation or policy to meet some arbitrary deadline, we generally end up with a poor quality product that does not honor the desires of the citizens, contains major defects, results in difficulties in implementation, and typically produces lawsuits and angry citizens.
There needs to be a more deliberatively, long-term approach taken, instead of political posturing and leaping to solve the problem-of-the-hour with A New Bill, NOW!
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