Democracy on the Net
One board member's digital newsletter
By James C. Klagge
How can elected officials stay in touch with their constituents?
When I joined the school board in January 1996, I struggled with
that question. During the election campaign I had visited hundreds
of people door-to-door, but I couldn't continue that. I had some
money left over in my campaign fund, but it wouldn't go far if
I had to pay to print and mail newsletters. And we had no franking
privileges in my county. So ... what to do?
I live in Blacksburg, Va., a university community where many
citizens have e-mail. In fact, Virginia Tech's phone directory
gives e-mail addresses for nearly all the faculty. So I took the
bold step of compiling a mailing list from the directory, copying
all the addresses of people I knew who lived anywhere in the school
district. Then I added the e-mail addresses of all those who lived
in my electoral district, whether or not I knew them. This resulted
in a list of about 300 e-mail addresses. Only about half of these
people live in my electoral district, but all are affected by
the decisions I help make.
Getting the word out
Armed with this list, I began sending out regular messages
about the work of the school board. I didn't realize that I was
creating a digital newsletter, but that is essentially what my
messages have turned out to be. In this digital communication,
I try to:
* Let people know what important issues the school board is
considering.
* Let people know what I think about those issues, giving the
rationale for how I voted or anticipate voting on particular matters.
* Solicit input about difficult or controversial issues.
* Urge people to contact their representatives in local, state,
and national government about taxes and other issues that affect
education or community well-being.
One controversial issue the board faced was what to do about
a crowded old middle school: Should we expand and renovate it?
Tear it down and build a new one on the same property? Or build
a new school elsewhere? There were strong feelings about each
of the options.
After soliciting input -- and getting more than 100 responses
-- I picked responses from the most articulate defenders of each
option and circulated them to the list so that people could learn
what others thought. I believe that helped defuse some of the
controversy. When I voted on this issue, I circulated a detailed
rationale and received a lot of positive feedback, even from those
who would have voted differently.
Another closely watched issue is whether students are sufficiently
challenged academically. This question has arisen in the context
of several related issues -- such as inclusive classrooms, middle
school philosophy, and test results -- that are large, amorphous,
and difficult to resolve. I wrote and circulated an extensive
"discussion paper," trying to frame these issues and offering
my tentative views on some of them. People on both sides of the
issues reported that they found the paper useful.
Less than a year after I started the online newsletter, some
local researchers wanted to study its impact and reception. The
results were very favorable. Over the past 35 months I have sent
out nearly 50 mailings, ranging widely in length. I have covered
many issues, and people tell me they feel much more in touch with
how things work in local government as a result. Citizens know
a lot about me, and because of the ease with which people can
reply to my comments, I know a lot about them as well.
My e-mail list has now grown to more than 500 addresses, including
those of central office staff members and principals. Many people
have asked to have friends added to the list. The newsletter probably
reaches more than 500 people, though, because copies are posted
in many schools for teachers to read, and some people forward
my letters to others.
Getting feedback
In retrospect, my most important decision was to put people
on the mailing list without asking their permission. In my first
few mailings I said up front that anyone who wished to be taken
off the list need only tell me; only about half a dozen did so.
Since I started the newsletter, I have offered to add others to
the list, but requests at meetings and in newspaper ads have produced
very few responses.
No one appreciates unsolicited e-mail Spam, of course, but my
newsletter does not seem to have evoked that kind of negative
response. People seem to appreciate being on a list that they
probably would not have taken the initiative to join. And they
appreciate the fact that I do not share the list with others,
despite several requests to do so. (If I deem a concern to be
worthy, I'll tell my recipients about it and leave it to them
to make the contact.)
My first mailing was done from my university e-mail address,
causing a few people to voice the concern that I was misusing
university resources. I'm not sure whether that would have been
a problem, because I use the newsletters solely for informational
and educational purposes. If I decide to run for office again,
for example, I would not use the newsletter for campaign purposes.
In any case, I switched to using a local address and have heard
no further complaints.
Another early piece of feedback was that all the addresses were
being printed out at the head of the letter, which was bothersome
and wasteful for those who were printing copies. Once I put the
nicknames for my mailing lists under blind carbon copy (bcc:),
however, this no longer happened. I use Eudora e-mail, but other
systems may have comparable solutions.
Technically, my newsletter is not a list-server-based discussion
group. All communications go through me. A discussion group might
drive away otherwise willing recipients. But I have occasionally
told constituents with a certain interest about others who share
that interest so they could work together.
I have tried to make it clear from the start that my mailings
were not official school board reports. Now that I am chair, it's
important to reemphasize that. The newsletters talk about how
I see things as one member of the board. In this way they also
offer a different perspective from newspaper coverage. They are
more extensive than the local coverage -- and more personal.
I have also tried to be sensitive to the fact that not all people
have e-mail addresses -- in fact, it is obvious that wealthier
and more educated people are much more likely to be online. This
bias is especially true for my mailing list, since it was built
largely from a university directory. So I always need to be aware
that the feedback I am getting is only the feedback of some people,
not a cross-section.
Still, it is more feedback than most politicians get, and I
have a more informed citizenry than most politicians. About half
of my addresses are of people in my electoral district, and if
I assume that each of these messages is shared with a spouse or
neighbor, then I'm reaching about 400 or 500 of my own constituents
-- well over 10 percent of my district's registered voters. And
it's a lot easier than visiting people door-to-door.
James C. Klagge
is chair of the Montgomery County (Va.) School Board and a philosophy
professor at Virginia Tech. His newsletter
was noted in "Wired Village," a September
1997 Electronic School cover story about Blacksburg, Va.'s community
networking project.
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