Advocate

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.