THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 8, 1995 TAG: 9509080479
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 143 lines
When politicians meet every week in a big room with lots of chairs and make decisions, it's called doing the business of the people.
This is what it often sounds like:
Ordinance appointing viewers in the petition of the city for the discontinuance, closure and abandonment of a portion of Atlantic Avenue at the southern boundary of Cavalier Drive and running south 450 feet, containing 21,938 square feet (Virginia Beach Borough).
Get all that?
When city council agendas go out, they don't come with pocket dictionaries or decoder rings.
Often, the jargon used by planners, lawyers and other city bureaucrats can obscure even the most basic public action.
Take that example above.
What actually happened was the Virginia Beach City Council decided to take the fork out of the intersection of Atlantic and Pacific Avenues and make it into two turns.
Using bureaucratic language, some say, has made the business of the people unrecognizable to the very people whose business it is.
``If it's not entirely clear what is going to be discussed or what the action is, then you may not make the right decision as to whether to appear or not,'' said Frances J. Hassencahl, an assistant professor of communications at Old Dominion University.
Hassencahl's reaction to the Virginia Beach's convoluted traffic request was: ``Get out your maps - that's all I can figure out for that one.''
At worst, Hassencahl said, the coded phrases and buzzwords of council meetings can be a subtle attempt to thwart public input on a thorny problem.
At best, public officials unintentionally shut citizens out by failing to explain the issue in laymen's terms.
``Sometimes, it's just really clear to the person who is working on the issues,'' Hassencahl said, ``but ordinary people don't necessarily have the knowledge.''
That seemed to be the case in Virginia Beach: Those who actually help draft the agenda said the language shouldn't be a mystery.
``I don't know how you could write it any clearer,'' said Virginia Beach City Clerk Ruth H. Smith, referring to the Atlantic Avenue ordinance.
Smith said closing a street and redrawing an intersection can take more than a year. In that time, city planners, attorneys and the City Council advertise numerous times, giving specific details about the proposed project.
``Either people are not paying attention,'' Smith said, ``or they're making an excuse of not understanding it. There are too many times that it comes to the public in too many different ways.''
Smith compared the council agenda to an index that gives a brief version of the items. Citizens who want to find out more about how the proposals would affect them can always go to the detailed information included in the council's back-up materials.
But what citizens often lack is not details, but a sense of how the policy will affect their daily lives. Without that knowledge, it may be harder for residents to act on or respond to city policy.
This is how Chesapeake residents two weeks ago learned that their water and sewer rates would rise in October:
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 78 OF THE CITY CODE, ENTITLED ``UTILITIES'' BY AMENDING SECTION 78-86(1)(a), (1)(c), (2)(a), (2)(b), (2)(c) AND 4(a), SECTION 78-87 AND SECTION 78-88(b)(1)b., (c)(1) AND (c)(2) AND DELETING SECTION 78-86(2)(d), (4)(a), (4)(b) AND (4)(c), TO INCREASE WATER CONNECTIONS FEES AND SANITARY SEWER CONNECTION FEES, SETTING A FLAT DISCONNECTION FEE AND SETTING WATER SERVICE AND SANITARY SEWER SERVICE CHARGES AND RATES.
Would this entice you to go see your local government in action?
Even Adele Whitener, a regular council-goer in Chesapeake for seven years, can have trouble decoding the alphabet soup.
Among Whitener's biggest concerns is the problem of growth, which has a vocabulary all its own.
``They have R-15, R-15s, RMF, B-1, B-2, use permits, rezonings,'' said Whitener, referring to classifications of zoned land in the city. ``And lots of people don't make themselves aware of what's going on. They'll come to me and say, `I had no idea the city was doing that,' and I say, `They decided that a long time ago. Where have you been?' ''
Often, the source of the problem is the very thing that also protects citizens in the democratic process - the legal system.
``Some of it is just the law,'' said Christopher T. Gates, president of the National Civic League, an organization of civic-minded groups based in Denver.
``If the law that already exists on the books is written that way, then anything that will change or affect that law is going to have to be read in the same language.''
Taking even the smallest liberty with that language, Gates said, can set up cities for legal attacks and costly, time-consuming litigation.
``It's not such a bad thing to be governed by laws . . . but when you get language like that, it can get to be kind of crazy,'' Gates said.
Even so, sometimes it's less a question of making sense to citizens than it is a question of making sense at all.
Suffolk's Aug. 13 council agenda listed an item to ``establish a City Council Work Session for Wednesday, Sept. 6, at 5 p.m., unless canceled.''
Virginia Beach passed an ordinance confirming the city manager's emergency declaration due to Hurricane Felix - a week after the hurricane had failed to come.
In that same week, it authorized $6,000 in tax refunds, but didn't say to whom.
If it's your money, you might want to find out.
One city offers an interpreter of sorts: Portsmouth publishes agendas in a language more people can understand.
For its Aug. 20 meeting, Portsmouth considered an ethical agreement to put limits on how the five cities compete for companies coming to the region.
``This policy establishes broad guidelines for regional economic development initiatives, and sets controls on individual development incentives deemed to be in the best interest of the Hampton Roads region,'' the agenda explained.
Compare that with Virginia Beach's description of the same item:
Resolution to establish ``Hampton Roads Regional Policy on Publicly Funded Development Incentives and Intra-Regional Competition'' as the policy to govern the award of development incentives in Virginia Beach.
Portsmouth's city clerk said the differences in council agendas among the five cities may be simply a matter of age.
``I think what you'll find is that the older cities, because they've been doing it for so many years, have learned a great deal about how to respond to citizens,'' said City Clerk Sheila Pittman. ``You learn from experience.''
The idea to make council agendas more accessible came to Portsmouth in a form that even a child could grasp: the ``blip and blurb.''
Spearheaded by former City Manager Robert T. Williams, the concept went as follows: the ``blip'' listed the item in its legal or bureaucratic form, while the ``blurb'' came underneath, to flesh out what the policy would mean in real life to citizens.
``If citizens understand it, then they won't fight you. So they have to be a part of the process.''
Ultimately, though, citizens have a responsibility to inform themselves, even if only about a fork in the road. ``It's incumbent on citizens to read,'' said Hassencahl, who is also an active member of her civic league in Dock Landing. ``Sometimes people bad-mouth politicians for feeling shut out, when in fact they haven't even done their homework.'' ILLUSTRATION: This is how Chesapeake residents learned their water and
sewer rates would rise in October:
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 78 OF THE CITY CODE, ENTITLED
``UTILITIES'' BY AMENDING SECTION 78-86(1)(a), (1)(c), (2)(a),
(2)(b), (2)(c) AND 4(a), SECTION 78-87 AND SECTION 78-88(b)(1)b.,
(c)(1) AND (c)(2) AND DELETING SECTION 78-86(2)(d), (4)(a), (4)(b)
AND (4)(c), TO INCREASE WATER CONNECTIONS FEES AND SANITARY SEWER
CONNECTION FEES, SETTING A FLAT DISCONNECTION FEE AND SETTING WATER
SERVICE AND SANITARY SEWER SERVICE CHARGES AND RATES.
by CNB