A common question is why do we do this.
- We do it to provide the public a way to express their position even if they don’t attend a meeting.
- To provide decision makers with an accurate and representative sample of what the public thinks.
- To provide a factual summary of the key points of various issues.
- Because we think it is interesting and important.
Many times a small group of people will show up at a meeting and say they want something or want something to be done in a certain way. Sometimes they tell the decision makers that the public agrees with them and that they represent the public. Sometimes a small number of people are able to influence important decisions because they have taken the time to organize and show up at meetings that no one else does. Sometimes the public shares the same goals, sometimes they don’t.
Meetings are often held when most people are at work. Many of the meetings do not allow the public to participate except for a brief period of time at the beginning or end. Often the council members, commissioners, board members want public involvement but struggle to find ways to engage the public. Even when open meetings are held, attendance is often light.
We do this to help provide the community with a way to participate. We do this to help the decision makers discover what the public thinks.
We think it very important that if a survey is to be done that it be done correctly. There are a lot of ways that a survey can be done incorrectly and intentionally abused. We started Madrona Voices because we saw first hand some of those abuses. We felt the best way to eliminate the abuse was to do the job correctly. We rely on the public to review every aspect of what we do. We welcome the review and we aim to be very transparent about our process.