Nationally-backed ideas campaign asks: Does public opinion matter in Columbia?
Does public opinion matter in Columbia? You see arguments about local businesses, traffic and neighborhood nuisances on social media all the time. But those opinions don’t often make it beyond the Nextdoor comment section.
Now, the people behind the nationally-recognized petition website Change.org are asking how they can help move those conversations out of the comment section and into city hall. And Columbia is one of just two cities in the entire country piloting a new initiative that aims to answer just that question.
Ideas for Change is an online campaign led by the nonprofit Change.org soliciting opinions on what Columbia needs to be a better city, with buy-in from Mayor Daniel Rickenmann’s office to take that feedback and try to do something tangible with it.
“We’ve also found that a lot of the ways that people are able to … discuss issues in their communities online are just not sufficient,” said Humphrey Obuobi, the Ideas for Change program manager for Columbia. “The process that we’re sort of piloting now is really an attempt to see, can we actually use these online tools to help identify what matters, identify areas of consensus across people who have differences, and then from there, be able to actually drive real change.”
Among the ideas Columbia residents have shared so far include making it easier to travel between Columbia neighborhoods by car (700+ votes,) provide home-buying assistance for residents who commit to living in their neighborhoods long-term (500+ votes,) and give more pedestrian tickets for jaywalking (25 votes.)
“You get an idea and suddenly people are building it and improving it, right? And then you end up with the end result that has all these pieces that have kind of been thought through,” Rickenmann said of his ideal for the initiative. Columbia wound up one of the two pilot cities after Rickenmann met the Change.org leaders through the U.S. Conference of Mayors, of which he is a member.
The city won’t be able to address every suggestion, critique or out-of-the-box idea proposed through the platform, but Rickenmann said his goal would be to identify the top three concerns and find a way to meaningfully address them.
That’s also the goal of the Change.org team. The platform will be open for residents to share their ideas through February 2. Then, in March, Change.org will host a community discussion in which the public will work through the proposed ideas alongside city leaders.
About 100 people who agree to be considered for the task will be selected to participate in that conversation. And each participant will get $150 from Change.org just for showing up.
The Ideas for Change platform is still in its infancy, and the Change.org team isn’t exactly sure how well it will work. The program costs the city nothing, Change.org is footing the entire bill in exchange for the city be a guinea pig for the site.
“It’s just worth putting the investment into the area to ... learn what actually is a productive way to engage,” Obuobi said.
You can participate by visiting Ideasforchange.org/Columbia.
