06-14-2008, 06:34 AM
[something I wanted to say...]
Local Government Policy and Planning: Outsource, In-house, Grassroots
Local government administration has come to rely on non-resident consultants to conduct the people’s business.
What now passes as local government policy and planning is often done by top-rate-plus-expenses experts. County funds are paid to non-resident consultants who arrive with a predetermined, off-the-shelf solution, and proceed to demonstrate minimum knowledge of the local community and even less regard for what local residents have to say. These experts are from and will return to somewhere else with county revenue in their pocket, unbothered about how it is living day-to-day with the outcomes of their own counsel.
How did it get this way?
Perhaps a combination of, first, Community Development Block Grants and associated surge in local government activity beginning in the 1970’s, and then the hollowing out of all levels of government that took place in the 1980’s.
Whatever the origin of broadbrush outsourcing of local government policy and planning, this paradigm has, at best, become stale and ineffective. A harsher assessment, to which I subscribe, is that the paradigm has become corrupted and principally serves interests other than those of the local community.
What to do?
One approach is based on interests of the local community being best served when the residents of the local community have charge of their own local government policy and planning.
The expert-from-somewhere-else paradigm is based on an underlying implication that people in the local (particularly rural) community are not capable of managing their own public affairs.
Before government agencies or consulting firms, community residents relied on their own talents and resources to do what needed to be done. In the 21st Century, what needs to be done is more complex, and, at least in Hawai`i County, the residents are also more competent than ever at dealing with complexity.
A second approach is to hire public employees so that policy and planning is done ‘in-house’. This brings forth questions about long- and short-term commitments to costs of salaries and benefits, overhead costs of office buildings, and more. These issues deserve a fair evaluation to determine what the impacts would be.
A fair evaluation would also recognize that outsourcing of local government policy and planning has direct costs, and, it is submitted here, outsourcing of local government policy and planning has substantial indirect costs in the form of corruption and an inherent absence of compulsion to serve local community interests.
Among the residents and ohana of this island, there are talents and resources sufficient in quality and quantity to accomplish policy and planning tasks now outsourced to nonresidents whose relationship to the community is only transactional.
Residents with local knowledge and professional expertise have demonstrated through the Community Development Planning process to have the ability to join in a voluntary effort to identify priorities and proposals for policy and planning.
The residents and ohana of this island, as grassroots community volunteers and as in-house public employees, are the experts best able to do the work of local government policy and planning for Hawai`i County.
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park
Local Government Policy and Planning: Outsource, In-house, Grassroots
Local government administration has come to rely on non-resident consultants to conduct the people’s business.
What now passes as local government policy and planning is often done by top-rate-plus-expenses experts. County funds are paid to non-resident consultants who arrive with a predetermined, off-the-shelf solution, and proceed to demonstrate minimum knowledge of the local community and even less regard for what local residents have to say. These experts are from and will return to somewhere else with county revenue in their pocket, unbothered about how it is living day-to-day with the outcomes of their own counsel.
How did it get this way?
Perhaps a combination of, first, Community Development Block Grants and associated surge in local government activity beginning in the 1970’s, and then the hollowing out of all levels of government that took place in the 1980’s.
Whatever the origin of broadbrush outsourcing of local government policy and planning, this paradigm has, at best, become stale and ineffective. A harsher assessment, to which I subscribe, is that the paradigm has become corrupted and principally serves interests other than those of the local community.
What to do?
One approach is based on interests of the local community being best served when the residents of the local community have charge of their own local government policy and planning.
The expert-from-somewhere-else paradigm is based on an underlying implication that people in the local (particularly rural) community are not capable of managing their own public affairs.
Before government agencies or consulting firms, community residents relied on their own talents and resources to do what needed to be done. In the 21st Century, what needs to be done is more complex, and, at least in Hawai`i County, the residents are also more competent than ever at dealing with complexity.
A second approach is to hire public employees so that policy and planning is done ‘in-house’. This brings forth questions about long- and short-term commitments to costs of salaries and benefits, overhead costs of office buildings, and more. These issues deserve a fair evaluation to determine what the impacts would be.
A fair evaluation would also recognize that outsourcing of local government policy and planning has direct costs, and, it is submitted here, outsourcing of local government policy and planning has substantial indirect costs in the form of corruption and an inherent absence of compulsion to serve local community interests.
Among the residents and ohana of this island, there are talents and resources sufficient in quality and quantity to accomplish policy and planning tasks now outsourced to nonresidents whose relationship to the community is only transactional.
Residents with local knowledge and professional expertise have demonstrated through the Community Development Planning process to have the ability to join in a voluntary effort to identify priorities and proposals for policy and planning.
The residents and ohana of this island, as grassroots community volunteers and as in-house public employees, are the experts best able to do the work of local government policy and planning for Hawai`i County.
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park
