Political
conversations are about "What did you hear?" Frequently this focuses
the political conversation on a story. Stories are very important to politics
because politics and community building are about values. In the role of advocate,
what council members say is often more important to the community than what
they know or what they have accomplished. The stories that council members
choose are about the values they want to convey to diverse groups throughout
the community. That's what stories do. They convey symbolically how people feel
and what they value. Staff can write a paper about program accomplishments, or a Council
member can tell a story about someone leaning on a shovel. The former is a
administrative exercise; the latter is a political one.
Imagine you are a
council member who has received a request for a crosswalk from a group of
senior citizens living in subsidized housing. They indicate in their
handwritten letter that they cannot cross the four-lane street in front of
their apartment building to go to the library or the grocery store. The request is
processed routinely by the city's traffic engineer. Based on traffic counts,
site distances, accident history and other objective criteria in the traffic
manual, the engineer recommends against any
traffic control at the intersection. So far, this seems like one of
those evidenced based decisions typical of good decision making.
Then, you as a
council member are invited to the apartment building to meet with the
residents. What you learn is the story behind the request. They tell you that
for the elderly, dignity is tied to their mobility and independence. Not being
able to cross this street confirms their worst fears, and they seem to be
asking, "Isn't it appropriate for the city government to help the older
citizens in this community maintain dignity in their lives?" The evidenced based decision just turned political. It's not that the staff was wrong. Their role and orientation are to recommend hard, objective facts instead of sorting out the values. One of the Council members’ roles is to be a values advocate by using the evidence in combination with social values to make a decision reflective of the community.
The example above depicts the differences in politics and administration as contrasting ways of thinking about problems due to differences in logic. Political logic is different than administrative logic, but is just as important. This means that the council’s role of cultural and political values advocate requires a team problem solving process that allows administration to re-focus on the desired outcome rather than the most efficient outcome.
