Posts about Public Involvement

Members of Pro-DC don't need to agree with every element of the zoning update. I don't. But we also believe that DC will grow and change regardless of public policy, and that our zoning should shape that growth in a positive way that improves the quality of life, increases amenities, and strengthens affordability for all residents.

In coming months, there will be some major battles over the zoning update that cut to the heart of how people see DC's future. These positive changes won't become reality unless decision makers hear from residents who share the vision. I hope you will join the email list, and ask your friends to do the same.

The sign at the top right is mounted on the sound wall at the entrance of the trail. The signs now list the name of the trail, a vast improvement over ones in the past which pointed towards destinations but failed to tell you which trail you were on.

Now someone who gets directions online or from a friend that say to "turn right on the Custis Trail" will have confidence they are at the right place when they reach the trail entrance.

This spot has always been confusing because both directions look like the trail. This sign helps, but it should also indicate that the Custis Trail continues to the left.

The East Falls Church distance indicator in the sign at the top was accidentally swapped with the one on this sign. The soundwall sign is actually closer to East Falls Church than this sign, but says it is 0.1 miles farther away.

This sign presents two specific problems but also offers an example of how future signs can improve further.

First, the word "THRU" is unclear. Is there a difference between the word "THRU" and a straight arrow? If so, it's difficult to tell what that is.

If not, a straight arrow would be clearer, and it would be more consistent with the directional arrows used elsewhere. The County may have already recognized the possible confusion since, as of yesterday morning, the word "THRU" had been blacked over on at this particular sign.

Second, Washington-Lee High School is not a useful destination to a vast majority of trail users. I would guess that only a small portion of cyclists and pedestrians passing this point are going to Washington-Lee High School.

Maybe it was necessary to have a directional sign for Washington-Lee High School to meet Safe Routes to School objectives. But if that's the case, then it should be at the connector to 15th St North near North Taylor and at the Quincy St connector, the exit points from the trail to the school.

At this location, the sign should have a more general location like "Clarendon" or, better yet, Washington, DC. Probably more than a quarter of trail users at this point are headed to the District. Yet, Arlington staff have told me that Washington, DC will appear on very few of the signs even though it is one of the most common destinations, especially for weekday commuters.

Finally, these problems raise a larger question: why weren't any of these issues resolved prior to posting the signs? Arlington hired a supposedly top notch contractor to do this. They spent a lot of time and money developing a comprehensive plan. I'm very active in the cycling community, yet I never heard anything about them soliciting user input on this sign system.

Before the next signs are finalized, Arlington and their contractor should make better effort to gather input and feedback from the trail users and the general public. In the future they should:

• Get on the DC online bike forums to ask the community about challenging intersections and common destinations
  
• Present at the Bicycle Advisory Committee meetings to seeking local knowledge; and
  
• Have a presence out on the trails, to talk with the actual trail users and get their input.
  

These are simple tactics to gather information. It's hard to say definitively, but I'm not aware that they engaged local users other than the Arlington County staff. Aren't these the kinds of things for which a Bicycle Advisory Committee exists?

To be sure, the new signs is are a fantastic improvement over the previous state. But hopefully Arlington can learn from first ones and apply those lessons as the program expands.

The commenters who weren't pleased with the rule were not opposed to the corner stores, but rather felt that limiting their hours to closing by 7 pm is too restrictive. One Twitter response linked to a Far Side cartoon which showed a new type of retail, the "inconvenience store," with all products on shelves too high to reach.

Yet another expressed surprise that corner stores in residential zones were illegal at all in the District; that comment's author hadn't realized that, perhaps because of their prevalence in historic neighborhoods like Georgetown.

Read these comments, and you would get the impression that we need substantially fewer zoning regulations. Read a few of the postings on some neighborhood listservs, and you might conclude that each individual change in the zoning code will bring mass destruction upon the neighborhoods of the District.

A blog's commenters are not fully representative of the residents of DC. Nor is a neighborhood listserv, nor the citizen Task Force advising on the rewrite, and certainly not the witness list at today's hearing. All, however, provide insight into one of many facets of the DC population and their views.

Decisions about the zoning rewrite should factor in input from as many residents as possible, even—or especially—those who can't attend an evening community meeting or a council hearing, and even those who don't read blogs and neighborhood listservs.

This zoning code will move DC forward in many ways. Or, in truth, it will actually move DC backward, but in a good way. The biggest changes in this zoning code actually return DC to policies it had before 1958, when our most treasured neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill, Georgetown, or Petworth grew into the form they have today.

Corner stores, garage apartments, alley dwellings, and buildings not surrounded by large parking lots are all characteristics of DC's most historic neighborhoods, which at a stroke the 1958 code made illegal. This code reverses that, and adds some 21st century touches like the Green Area Ratio.

However, I do think many elements of the current draft proposal are indeed "too timid."

• The minimum parking requirements for nonresidential uses in residential zones, even low-density ones right near transit, are potentially quite destructive to our urban fabric as they have been for over 50 years. In some areas, we need maximums instead, an approach which OP recently dropped from the draft.

• The "corner store" rules should apply to more areas, even lower density zones and areas somewhat near commercial zones; should include performing arts uses like small theaters; and should include a path for the BZA to grant exceptions acceptable to neighbors and local leaders.

  I do think many of the restrictions in the draft are appropriate, and disagree with Yglesias on the specific one (cooking of food and grease traps) he was objecting to. OP has tried hard to balance stakeholder interests on a very contentious issue.

• The right to add an accessory dwelling to one's home, proposed for the lowest density zones and already possible for high density ones, should also apply to the moderate density "R3" row house zones.

I understand that in at least some cases, OP officials have met privately with various opponents of the zoning rewrite, and made specific changes to exempt some zones from some changes in an attempt to appease those opponents.

I have no objection to OP meeting with anyone who wishes to talk with them, but I would prefer to see OP propose a zoning rewrite which they believe is the best policy for the District and in harmony with the Comprehensive Plan, regardless of who may or may not oppose it. After all, we have hardly yet heard the views of most DC residents on these changes.

This hearing, of course, is about the performance of the Office of Planning, not the merits of the zoning code. I believe the staff on this project have handled its great complexity with aplomb, and if I have any complaint about the agency's performance, it only comes if and when they have felt restrained from putting forth the zoning code they believe to be right. Let them do so, and then let the Zoning Commission hear from residents and judge the merit of each proposal.

Construction may require temporary closure of the 295 Eastbound on-ramp at 8th Street and Virginia Avenue. This would force drivers heading across the 11th Street Bridge to use the on-ramp at 11th and N Streets.

As part of the NEPA process, CSX and DDOT will hold several public meetings, and this first one was billed as a "scoping meeting." Here's the presentation.

Left: NEPA process overview. Right: NEPA schedule.

While CSX provided plenty of nametagged people to talk to members of the public and address questions, the open format left more that a few people scratching their heads. A number of attendees expressed their disappointment that CSX didn't begin the meeting with some kind of general presentation about project basics, like tentative designs and schedule, need and potential impacts.

"I don't even really know what's happening," said one nearby resident. "Is this tunnel only one option? I'm not a shy person, so I have no problem asking questions of these people, but I could see how a lot of people can get intimidated."

That may indeed have happened. The organizers boasted about 100 attendees signing in, but it appeared that only half of those were in any way engaged in asking questions of submitting comments, with many others quickly scanning past the placards before heading off into the night.

What's more, the meeting had a decidedly superficial feel to it. The placards scattered about the room contained very little information beyond introductory NEPA facts, a very basic project scope, and a lot of pro-freight rail propaganda, including some nifty computer animations about the National Gateway project.

As David Garber, ANC Commissioner for the affected neighborhood, pointed out, the meeting was lacking in answers to residents' most important questions: what happens during construction and what does the community get out at the end? "Virginia Avenue is not a great public space currently," Garber said, "so there's an opportunity here to change that."

So while many residents were left wondering why they should be made to endure huge, several year long disruptions to their daily lives, there was no sign anywhere of CSX's proposed community amenities.

CSX is clearly making significant efforts to reach out to the community. They're going to need it to overcome an earlier snafu in which the railroad and its consultants used old satellite images for preliminary planning. The old photos left planners unaware that Virginia Avenue was no longer a strip of vacant parcels, but instead a burgeoning neighborhood of new row houses and a senior apartment building.

Still, this event did little to answer residents' questions or quell their fears that the project would be a major disruption to their daily lives. While asking for comments, questions and alternatives is a laudable effort, it is difficult for the public to make reasonable suggestions if they no so little about the actual impacts they can expect.

If you live or work near Virginia Avenue or frequent the SE-SW freeway, DDOT and CSX want to hear your concerns. The NEPA process requires a 30-day comment period, leaving interested members of the public until October 14th to submit their comments. Comments can be submitted via email to contact@virginiaavenuetunnel.com or via the project website.

Update: The boards from the meeting are now posted online.

Before this year, WMATA generally ignored its critics, didn't participate much on social media, and couldn't decide whether their media relations department should or shouldn't answer questions from bloggers. Then, with new management, they flipped entirely and started engaging.

It doesn't mean every problem is getting fixed, but it's a huge start toward a dialogue. Sometimes an agency has reasons for a decision which aren't apparent to others. If we at least know the reason, we might not all agree, but we can gain a better understanding of the constraints that hamper our officials.

DPR, to its credit, seems to be firmly in the engagement camp. DDOT has been generally good on this front as well. Not every DC agency is the same; MPD has largely refused to discuss issues with enforcement of bicycle and pedestrian laws or errors in investigating crashes that involve vulnerable road users.

I invited Peter May, NPS's Associate Regional Director for Lands, Resources, and Planning, to come on for a live chat and explain the Park Service's reasons for decisions that seem nonsensical and contrary to their mission. He was interested at first but ended up declining the offer entirely.

Bill Line, the NPS spokesperson, has never responded to a single email despite my sending one asking for his comment or insight before almost every story about NPS in the last month or more. He hasn't just said he has no comment; he has not sent a single email of any kind in reply.

It's not just me. Numerous parks advocates say that NPS makes no effort to have a dialogue with neighbors about parks. The few meetings that do take place are usually required by Environmental Impact Statement processes, and are then very structured in a way that minimizes discussion or input.

As one of many examples, NPS recently made a "determination" that its parkways are not compatible with bicyclist usage. Most people would agree that the parkways are not friendly to cyclists, but that's a consequence of NPS decisions to design these roads, originally designed for scenic pleasure drives through a park, more and more as high-speed commuter freeways.

WABA's Shane Farthing objects that this determination was made "without the input of the public or the burdened community," and also argues that it's a wrong decision. NPS should be striving for an ongoing dialogue with cyclists about these spaces, regardless of what policies ultimately result.

John Hendel also makes some excellent points about how NPS "doesn't get the new language of transit." Perhaps if they felt a need to converse with affected citizens about their parks instead of ignoring them, they would at least understand concerns and be able to speak to them when making proclamations about parks.

The grass might have caught on fire in Upshur Park, but it's clear DPR at least is in tune with its constituents, even if for whatever reasons, financial or otherwise, they aren't adequately watering the trees and grass.

Here's Schultz's full statement:

My name is Derek Schultz and I coordinate grounds management for DC Parks and Recreation. I am a normal reader of GGW and was pleased to see you taking an interest in the grounds maintenance of DC run parks. In case your readers are interested, I would like to provide a little more background on DC Parks. We maintain roughly 900 acres (including natural growth areas) comprised of 333 individual properties. Included in our inventory are 115 athletic fields (98 natural turf, 15 artificial turf), 70 recreation centers, and 22 outdoor pools.

I believe you make some valid points. I would love additional funding for grounds maintenance, but at the same time I feel that recent systematic improvements in our grounds management program deserve attention. Some recent improvements include: installation of computerized central irrigation system for various field sites (makes automatic adjustments to ensure we irrigate at the proper levels) routine planting bed maintenance at 99 high profile DPR locations, implementation of permit limitations at our premier natural turf fields (ensures the long term-sustainability of these fields). A full list of recent improvements is listed below.

Related to Walter Pierce, yes the site was just completed and the true test will be how it looks in a few years, but we have other examples of premier fields that have stood the test of time. These sites include: Banneker Maury Wills Field (installed in 2009) HQ field (installed 2010), Fort Stanton field (installed 2009). Our new premier field permit regulations assist us in ensuring that our premier fields stay in premier shape.

Yes, we have a way to go, but we are on the right path and have a real focus on improving our park grounds. Our hope is that through DGS we can continue this upward momentum.

I would love to give you a tour of some of our sites and would be happy to discuss some of the opportunities and challenges we face. Please feel free to call or email me at any time. [Editor's note: If I arrange a tour, I will try to arrange it so other GGW readers can attend as well.]

Grounds Management System-wide Improvements

• Installation of new centrally controlled irrigation system at 13 athletic fields sites
  
  • This new system allows us to make automatic adjustments to our irrigation schedule based on weather conditions (wind, humidity, solar radiation, rainfall).
    
  • Improves monitoring of contractors who maintain system ensuring that they are testing the sites properly (they have unique log-in at controller site).
    
  • Facilitates the fine tuning of watering schedules to allow for the optimum irrigation program for each site (reduces overwatering).

• Routine planting bed maintenance schedule (pruning, weeding, mulching). First time ever where 99 high profile DPR sites are being serviced on a routine basis. (photo of Palisades bed maintenance)

• DPR led development of citywide computer based mowing tracking system (DPR has 333 individual properties).

• Routine EWF installation at all 78 DPR playgrounds.

• Creation and implementation of comprehensive routine maintenance schedule for natural turf and synthetic fields (113 DPR fields).

• Installation of new in-field ball diamond mix at 50 playing fields (the most sites completed at one time) 2011 spring baseball season.

• Implementation of new permit limits for DPR premier natural turf fields with the goal of creating sustainable fields that require less tax payer expenditures for yearly refurbishments.
  
  • High intensity sports limit of 30hrs/week (found to be on the high end of what natural turf fields can handle).

• Natural turf premier field maintenance improvements
  
  • DPR natural turf premier fields have received the highest level of maintenance this summer than in any previous year

• Computer Controlled Musco Sports Lighting Systems (12 sites)
  
  • Allows DPR to remotely adjust the lighting schedule at each site which leads to fine tuned schedules based on permits. This fine tuning leads to lower electricity use.
    
  • Requires fewer staff to go around turning on and off lighting systems manually. This saves the district money.

DPR Natural Turf Field Renovations

• Walter Pierce Field
  • Installation of new Patriot Bermuda grass field
    
  • Replacement of irrigation system (now on central control)

• Headquarters Park
  • Installation of new Patriot Bermuda grass field
    
  • Replacement of irrigation system (now on central control)

• Barry Farm
  • Installation of new Patriot Bermuda grass field

• Numerous Baseball Infields brought back online and added to routine dragging schedule after being offline for multiple years
  • Douglass Rec Center
    
  • Marvin Gaye Rec Center
    
  • Congress Heights
    
  • New York Avenue Playground

DPR Field Refurbishments (with partners)

• Fort Stevens Field
  • Sprigging to restore worn areas
    
  • Routine fertilization and aeration throughout the summer.

• Fort Reno Field
  • Sprigging to restore worn areas
    
  • Routine fertilization and aeration throughout the summer.

• Hardy
  • Fall overseeding
    
  • Aeration and fertilization

• Rudolph
  • Fall overseeding
    
  • Aeration and fertilization

Thank you,
Derek Schultz

The most controversial issue involves a "slip lane," where a very short one-way road segment cuts off a corner. Right now, drivers heading south on Arlington Ridge Road can make a slight right turn onto South Meade Street, while anyone going from Meade to Arlington Ridge or coming from the other direction has to turn at a 90° T-intersection.

Changes on Arlington Ridge Road. North is to the right. S. Meade Street is at the far left; the slip lane crosses the large green areas in the drawing. Image from Arlington County.

Arlington plans to close that slip lane and have the southbound Arlington Ridge to Meade cars also make the 90° turn. They also plan to widen sidewalks and eliminate a place where buses pull out of traffic at a stop.

There are several good reasons for this. The Arlington Ridge Citizens' Association (ARCA) has been long asking the county to slow traffic. They want Arlington Ridge Street and 23rd Street South to serve more as neighborhood streets than as major commuter through routes between I-395 and places like Crystal City.

Pedestrians walking along Arlington Ridge, including children walking to the nearby school, have to leave the side of the road to cross South Meade west of the slip lane. That's a more lengthy path, and in reality, many don't take it. But crossing right where the slip lane meets Arlington Ridge isn't so safe, since there isn't a crosswalk or even a sidewalk, and drivers aren't expecting people to cross.

The other nearby side streets meet Arlington Ridge at a T. Why not this one? Opponents say that because Arlington Ridge starts a long downhill slope here, drivers won't see someone who's stopped to make the turn, especially if a driver is distracted or in bad weather.

Collisions are always a danger of distracted driving or bad weather, but slowing traffic reduces, not increases, the likelihood and also means those collisions that do happen are less likely to cause serious injury or death.

I drove over to the area Friday during the evening rush to check it out in person. From the light at South 23rd Street, at the the top of the hill, the entire intersection is easily visible from even a smaller car. A driver coming down the hill will see another car at the corner with plenty of time.

In fact, as an experiment, I tried turning several times from Arlington Ridge onto South Meade but not using the slip lane—the way drivers will once the change is finished. As I was slowing and stopping at the corner, cars coming down the hill started braking long before.

The intersection is visible from a long distance. Photo from Google Street View.

Opponents also claim that Arlington is ignoring their input, and even got an Examiner article with the headline, "Neighbors feel left out as Arlington zooms forward with street project."

The critics say,

The citizens are standing up for an honest, open and constructive dialogue. So far, the County has largely ignored our input. This is happening in Arlington (VA) County that is a home for the well-known "Arlington Way", which is nationally acclaimed as a model example of collaboration and planning between citizens and government. There are obvious issues with this project and the implementation of the "Arlington Way" in reality.

What is the "Arlington Way"? A quick Google search turns up a few descriptions:

• Alice Marshall: "The Arlington Way refers to Arlington's unique political culture that places great emphasis on citizen input and participation. No decision can be made without consulting all stakeholders."
  
• Ron Carlee to SharonTB: "Each person has a chance to be heard."
  
• Stephen Davis: "The County places great emphasis on citizen input and participation. All the stakeholders are brought to the table, and Arlington residents are very active in the public process and making their voices heard."

Arlington appears to have listened very closely. In multiple letters, they detail specific changes they made to the plan based on resident comments.

County officials brought the plan to ARCA, the area citizens' association, in September 2010—11 months earlier. ARCA signed off on the plan. Only later, after some neighbors brought up complaints, did they change their view. Arlington has been discussing the issues with opponents for 3 months.

Lawn sign in the area. Closing the slip lane won't push traffic into the neighborhood. Among other reasons, it's not even possible to cut through this neighborhood given the road connectivity. Photo by the author.

Listening does not mean agreeing. The Arlington Way means everyone can be heard, not that nothing can ever happen unless everyone agrees. The county has clearly listened and even made many changes.

I've long pushed regional transportation officials to share their plans and listen to input. Some transportation professionals (outside Arlington) have expressed a worry that if they give more opportunities for input, it will simply bring out more opposition. Or, some say, if they conduct public meetings, will they have to take the recommendation of the majority of those participating?

These are not reasons to forgo public input. A government agency needs to tell residents what it plans, and give them the chance to weigh in. Officials should seriously listen to concerns rather than just nodding politely and disregarding everything they hear. But then, it also needs to make a decision based on the available information and move forward.

Setting clear policies is another way to address this. Rather than turning every project into a battle, an agency can set overarching guidelines with public input. DC's sidewalk policy, for instance, is a good example, and it was most frustrating when Mayor Fenty simply overruled that policy in a few cases. Arlington has developed policies around slip lanes and pedestrian safety, and those policies support this change.

If an agency collects more public input, and sets clear policies and follows them, does that make it easier or harder to follow through projects? Should transportation officials conclude that, actually, all this input is really a bad idea and try instead to hide plans from the public until the last minute?

The response of elected officials is key. The Arlington County Board has held firm in their support for this plan. That sends a clear message that whether on DC's zoning rewrite or on Arlington's slip lanes, when public officials follow a good public input process and follow their policies, it might not blunt the criticism from the most vehement opponents or avoid sensationalistic Examiner headlines, but it does secure political support.

Residents of Arlington should thank their board members for sticking with this project. Even if they never drive, walk, or bike in this area, it strengthens the case for good public input and policies on other projects in the future.

The commission has 3 industry members, but currently they are representatives from hospitality industries, not from drivers directly. People differ on whether the taxi drivers should be directly represented, but at the moment they're in limbo, where they're supposed to have representation but don't.

Tommy Wells was already going to be tackling the Taxi Commission problems even before the recording incident. What should the Council do?

The more I watch DC government, the more I feel that these boards and commissions don't work. They have a significant role in setting policy, but the last two mayors, at least, haven't appointed people with an eye toward specific policy directions. Instead, they appoint people they know personally or big campaign donors.

Mayor Fenty, for instance, was widely considered more friendly to development interests than anti neighbors, and the actions of his Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development certainly reflected such a bias, often to an extreme. But when making appointments to the Zoning Commission, a board with enormous influence over development (arguably more than DMPED), he didn't seem to consider this at all.

This divorces policy too far from our elected officials. The Council or Mayor can set a policy direction for the city and voters can either elect or replace them because of it. But when policy is being made by people picked just for arbitrary reasons, there's no link from the people to the policy.

Many commissions take a lot of time, but don't pay members, dramatically limiting the range of people who can serve. Often that limits the field to either people with a professional interest in the issue, or retirees.

Government seems to work better when decisions are either made by the legislature, or by political appointees directly reporting to an elected executive. The elected legislators or executives might not always be very good, but at least people can throw them out of office if they're doing a sufficiently bad job.

Perhaps instead of a Taxi Commission, the agency should report to the Mayor like most other agencies. In fact, 2 current DCTC members are also DDOT employees, Scott Kubly and Ralph Burns, from the division overseeing the Circulator, streetcars and Capital Bikeshare. If the Mayor wants administration officials setting taxi policy, they could simply set it directly.

Should it be subsumed into an existing agency? The Taxicab Commission serves two roles. It sets taxi policy, such as fares and whether to limit supply with medallions. And it handles licensing and inspections for drivers.

The former function would best belong at DDOT. That agency already is setting transportation policy and can consider big picture issues like how to encourage taxis to serve areas of high demand and/or areas without good transit options. On the other hand, the latter function is closest to the current work of the DMV or DCRA.

DCTC's responsibilities could be split, with DDOT setting policy and the DMV or DCRA handling licensing. However, having other split functions has created problems in the past. Traffic and parking tickets, for instance, are written by MPD or DPW and enforced by the DMV under regulations formulated by DDOT. That's often created many problems where DDOT might set a rule but nobody enforces it, or tickets get written but nobody goes after drivers to collect the money.

If DDOT gets the job, it could create a whole large licensing role that DDOT hasn't had to handle and might turn into a distraction. On the other hand, if all of the responsibility goes to DCRA, then they might not think creatively about policy. DCRA and the DMV is structured to grant and monitor permits, and could have an inherent orienation toward not changing much.

Or, DCTC could remain its own agency but without a commission, instead having all responsibilities handled by mayoral appointees subject to laws passed by Council. Finally, the commission could stay, perhaps with added power to carry out its own decisions.

What do you think would work best?

Not all of them are online yet; for example, a case about Buzzard's Point coming up before the Zoning Commission later this month has no documents listed, nor do older cases like this one at 14th and U from a few years ago.

But this is a great start. Hopefully DCOZ can continue to get more of the filings online.

I've been maintaining a little table of how different development review boards in DC are doing to make their cases and decisions open and accessible. The boards listed are the Zoning Commission (ZC) and Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA), both of which are part of DCOZ; the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB), the Public Space Committee (PSC), NCPC, and the Commission on Fine Arts (CFA).

	BZA/ZC	HPRB	PSC	NCPC	CFA
Post submissions	Some			From agenda
Post agendas			Email1
Post staff reports	N/A2		N/A2
Post agency/ANC comments	3
Receive emailed comments			Unclear
Post individual comments
Stream audio/video
Archive audio/video		Some delay
Post actions			Email1		Slowly

In addition to the changes listed above, the table now reflects that NCPC posts detailed information about its cases under consideration, once those cases are on the upcoming agenda for consideration by the commission.

NCPC has also recently started tweeting, and during today's meeting, tweeted interesting developments throughout the meeting. Nice job!

Mike DeBonis explained the primary motivations at work here. In short, Barry probably wants Near Southeast redistricted into Ward 8 to give him a role in the booming development in that area.

But Barry is right about one thing: The Redistricting Game was not scientific. It's not an opinion poll which tries to accurately estimate the views of all residents. But since when does the Council ever use opinion polls to make decisions?

They don't. Instead, they listen to people who testify, people who schedule meetings with them, and to a lesser extent people who email, call, or write letters.

Barry did listen to those present. He brought in a number of people to testify about extending Ward 8 west of the river; some, as it turned out, didn't even live in DC. Far fewer than 100 people from Ward 8 testified at this hearing, but Barry didn't claim their testimony was "flawed" because it's not scientifically representative.

Later, he noted that nobody from Near Southeast had yet testified at the hearing, and therefore there must be no opposition. Is that scientific?

About 30 people testified at the hearing, and their views should be listened to. But they're not necessarily representative either. The people who filled out the Redistricting Game are also a set of residents who expressed their preferences, and the Council should consider them as it would any other set of suggestions from any other not-necessarily-representative group of 4,000 residents.

It's easy to take potshots at Barry, and regardless he's unlikely to get his redistricting wish. But there's a larger point. Why do we accept our current model of civic engagement as the right one?

It gives a much louder voice to people who want to take the time to attend hearings, which are often in the middle of the day. It gives priority to those who can afford to spend 4 hours or more on a single development project, a single bill, or a single zoning change.

That favors people who are retired, or people paid to lobby for issues, or people who feel particularly strongly about a single narrow subject.

The Zoning Commission has been holding many, many hearings on the zoning rewrite, with few participants at some of the hearings. Geoff Hatchard, Ken Archer, CSG's Cheryl Cort, DC Sierra Club's Bradley Green, and I testified recently for accelerating the parking location zoning change, and Zoning Commission member Peter May complimented everyone on attending. I'm glad we could, but this also points out how such a turnout is somewhat unusual.

Few people can go to all of the zoning hearings, or even more than a few. It's tough to get people to go to a zoning hearing on, say, changing waterfront zoning when they have no objection to the changes, when the changes won't have much of a visible effect on development, and they are likely to sail through.

The people who testified at last week's HPRB hearing on the Hine school represented those who felt so strongly they wanted to take an entire afternoon off to talk about the project. HPRB hearings happen in the middle of the day, and typically take all day. Items have start times on the schedule, but those are very approximate. I've spoken at the HPRB and had an item come up hours after it was scheduled.

I've gone to testify at the Board of Zoning Adjustment, another board with daytime hearings, and seen the mid-morning item I was there for moved to the afternoon (or moved to another day entirely). DC Council hearings have started hours late. Sometimes the chair of a council committee has moved the government witness to the beginning, instead of at the end as is usual, and talked to that witness for 2 hours or more while the public witnesses waited patiently.

Many residents of Capitol Hill think the Hine project doesn't need to get shorter, or should even be taller, but they didn't go to the hearing. Some had jobs which prevented it. Does that mean their views don't matter?

There are some advantages to a process which favors those who care about an issue. If you just poll people, a lot of folks don't know much about an issue at all and are making snap judgments on little information. Decisionmakers shouldn't necessarily hold every resident's opinion exactly equal.

But the current system goes much too far. There's little value in giving a voice only to people who can spend 4 hours in the middle of the day waiting to speak for 3 minutes.

What to do? One step is for decisionmakers to listen to other channels as well. Montgomery County at-large councilmember Hans Riemer does by listening to people on Facebook, and found drastically different views there versus in person at a hearing on the Silver Spring skybridge. DC councilmember Tommy Wells uses Twitter, sending his own tweets and reading his own Twitter feed.

That's a step, but not the end of the story either. These channels privilege people who spend a lot of time sitting around on Twitter and Facebook. That's not representative either, though when combined with people testifying in person, it adds breadth.

It'd be great to develop a good channel for leaders to hear more views from poor and minority communities, and add that to their cognitive understanding of what residents want. Wells took a meaningful step by conducting a "listening tour" about bus service in wards 4, 5, 7, and 8, but there's much more that can be done.

Elected officials try harder to hear more views because they want the votes. Unfortunately, not only do our formal boards and commissions not generally use these channels, but many can't. You can tweet @TommyWells during a hearing to suggest questions, but there's no @CatherineBuell account for the HPRB chair.

Even if there were an @AnthonyHoodZC account, the Zoning Commission chair would be breaking rules against "ex parte" communication. Just like judges, Zoning Commission and BZA members are not allowed to hear comments on cases except through the official hearing or formally submitted letters of testimony.

Sure, there are reasons for this. A body making a legal determination is required to do so based on a public record, and so the comments have to go into that record. But these rules also mean that the commission is limiting its input in ways that result in an incomplete view of residents' opinions.

Could the Zoning Commission legally set up a @DCZoningCmsn Twitter account, where messages appear on commissioners' smartphones or on screens behind the dais during the hearing, and which also go into the official public record, for example? To get people on the other side of the digital divide, are there ways to make it easier to submit comments on cases beyond sending formal and time-consuming letters or faxes?

The boards should be seeking more ways to get input while still keeping their responsibility to have a public record, and elected officials should look for opportunities to hear from a broader range of people. As a first step, both elected officials and appointed board members should acknowledge that while holding hearings is a valuable part of getting input, relying on it alone is very much "flawed."