Regarding 'town hall meetings' and the such

As most readers should know by now, I'm a 'reason-behind-the-reason' sort of guy. I'm more interested in what brought a situation to a head (indeed, how it all began in the first place) than I am in examining the identifiables of the event itself.

So when we start talking about 'town hall meetings', once I've managed to quell my need to champ at the bit, I sit back and watch, witness...feel the bemusement flow over me.

Because here's what I think comes to mind for many people when the term is mentioned:

'Things have gotten so bad in a community, a town, a city, a country, that a town hall meeting is called so that people have a chance to vent, to excoriate, while the politicians at the other end do their best not to get tarred and feathered.'

Witness the town hall meetings that unfolded during the health care debate in the US. The vitriol, the frustration...the out-to-lunch rhetoric.

Sad.

Here's my belief: Town hall meetings are simply the modern version of the clan or tribe sitting around the community fire, discussing Life, planning strategies, working out differences, passing down wisdom and striving for tribe unity through storytelling.

I happen to believe in town hall meetings. But not as a stop-gap. I believe that they're a vital form of attaining and maintaining a deeper 'relationship of engagement' between citizens and their elected officials within local governance. However...

Town hall meetings should not be 'photo ops'.

Town hall meetings should not be 'media events'.

Town hall meetings should not be instances of lip-service paid.

They should be instances of pronounced communication between residents and those who both serve and lead them.

This is a relationship we're talking about here.

Would you consider for even a second trivializing your relationship with your partner, your children, your parents or your friends by treating it an any other way than how my three admonitions suggest?

I know that some politicians regard town hall meetings as 'potential disaster zones', where things can go awry very quickly, and therefore feel no small amount of hesitation about holding them.

My reaction to that is: 'All the more reason to have town hall meetings and begin fostering a genuine relationship of engagement with their constituents.'

After all, if things are that bad, doncha think it might be a good idea to do what makes sense to improve the situation? In other words, promote better in-person communication?

As a side-bar to this, as a result of the announcement of mayoral candidate Larry Di Ianni's latest effort, a 'telephone town hall', I need to go back to something I'd mentioned in my original series dealing with how to change the role of residents in local governance. In my list of suggested ways for the two participants to spend some quality time 'together', I presented the notion of electronic town halls. But not via phone -which is, let's face it, very 1980s- but by online chat technology.

As I've already said elsewhere, this seems like something candidate for Ward 2 Councillor Martinus Geleynse would be a natural to execute.