Enhancing public participation with diverse and divided audiences

Loud, angry people make it difficult to meet the goals of town hall meetings - finding out what community members think and want.  The actions of the loudest tend to intimidate anyone who has a different opinion from speaking up.  If you take others' silence as agreement, you might make decisions that unfairly favor one group over another.

If the others won't talk for fear of the yellers, here are some tips for getting their input:

• Develop with the audience workable ground rules for public participation.  If one of the rules is "everybody's voice is respected," the audience can agree that "no one gets booed or laughed at."  Enforce the rules during the meeting, or you will lose credibility with the audience.
  
• Provide everyone with index cards where they can write their comments and a box to put their comments in.  Make sure the box is covered or not clear, and has only a slot (that way audience members can't open up the box.)
• Arrange the room in small tables if you can.  Most people feel more comfortable speaking up from a table with their friends than in an auditorium format. When the yellers do appear, they are less likely to appear to be speaking for the whole audience.
• Invite people to share their input via email or phone calls before and after the session.  Organized activists will also dominate this type of communication.  But you're more likely to get other opinions.
• Set time limits on speakers during the public input portion of the meeting.  This will help prevent a yeller from running out the clock on a public meeting.
• Consider holding online public meetings.  These are more difficult to disrupt.  This should be done only in areas where most people are comfortable participating online.  It always should be an add-on to in person community meetings, not a replacement.
  
• If a yeller says anything that appears intended to intimidate participants from presenting other opinions, use that as an opportunity to defend the right of everyone to speak their minds.  This changes the subject from the yeller's concerns to the fact that the yeller is trying to disrupt the democratic process.  This might make some in the audience more comfortable about speaking up or sharing their thoughts later on.

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

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For more information:
 The Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program offers courses in public participation and community outreach.  Among them are Planning in the Age of Direct Democracy.  For more information, and to see upcoming courses, or our course catalog, please visit the Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program.