Bringing People to the table of Governance - A presentation on Mobile Governance

Over the last few years you, who have read this blog, have been made privy to my frustrations detailing the lack of a relationship between government and the citizenry. I have expressed the anxieties I feel I have witnessed in the association between a government operating in favor of special interests and lacking forthrightness and an unengaged, ambivalent public looking for short answers and simple solutions.

Rick Smyre introduced the subject of Mobile Governance to the Future Economy Council and myself in late May and Early June of 2009. He wrote a detailed article entailing the meaning of Mobile Governance, which I introduced on the Hickory Hound at that time -THE WEAK SIGNAL OF MOBILE GOVERNANCE by Rick Smyre.

Dewey Harris, the Assistant Catawba County Manager and a member of the Future economy Council gave a thorough presentation and discussion of the progress that has taken place over this issue during the last 18 months. Dewey has worked in association with Rick and there is hope that UNC-Wilmington and other institutions will come on board to institute this process and program. Pilot Programs will be established to initially stake a flag into some key complex issues where local governments might have trouble communicating with the public and implementing important tasks and processes, because of the lack of trust that has become rooted in our current system of governance.

Here is Dewey's presentation made on November 3, 2010:



Here is a favorite quote of mine from Catawba County Chamber of Commerce President Danny Hearn espoused on June 18, 2009, which makes a statement about what the Future Economy Council is trying to achieve and its relation to the governance issue.

When people say, "who is the beneficiary?" I can't go to someone and say give me $10,000 and you will get this in return. This is not that investment. We are selling the invisible. If we continue to take this economy in the direction that we have always taken it, we aren't going to get anywhere. The Economy has totally changed. What we had prior to 2000 is gone. We have to reinvent ourselves. If we don't do that, then we are in big trouble. It is the thinking of elected officials, business, and education of changing the way we do things and that investment can't be shown. The community better embrace it and understand it.

We can't even get our local officials to read a document about Mobile Governance that Rick wrote. There are (forward thinking) investment ideas out there, that no current elected official will look at, but people who are prone to understand this and reach outside of their comfort level and try to embrace it, all of a sudden, an idea that a traditional thinker will not do, we might. Those ideas are achievable.