City officials in Santa Monica are recommended that a committee to recommend future options for their soon to be shuttered be randomly selected.
Basically, they think that the normal model, where the select the committee from applicants, it too likely to be full of people with an ax to grind, so they want to use sortition, where the members of the commission are randomly chosen, as they would be for a jury.
In this case, it's true. The people who want to be on such a committee are largely realtors looking for free land for a quick buck:
The future of Santa Monica Airport should be hammered out -- not by the usual community activists and civic volunteers -- but by randomly selected "everyday people," City officials told the City Council Monday.
The information item from top Public Works officials proposes using a democratic lottery to "engage new residents through a randomized selection process," instead of relying on "the same self-selected individuals."
After meeting in person for six weekends over the course of some nine months starting next fall, the panel would make recommendations to the Council for the 227-acre site that under a 2017 agreement with the FAA would cease to operate as an airport at the end of 2028.
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The lottery system -- which is not common in North America -- "would result in a panel that demands broad demographic representation, and minimizes the influence of special interests," said the report from Public Works Director Rick Valte.
Previous long-range planning efforts by the City have "suffered tremendous opposition from vocal community members whose resistance to key elements of each plan -- or even the entire plan itself -- resulted in protracted land use battles," the report said.
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On the other hand, lottery-selected panelists "are everyday people" who "do not have prior experience with the policy topic" and "have a unique capacity for identifying common ground solutions in the public’s best interest.
"Much like a jury trial, they receive a vast amount of information before independently deliberating on recommendations," the report said.
The information item from top Public Works officials proposes using a democratic lottery to "engage new residents through a randomized selection process," instead of relying on "the same self-selected individuals."
After meeting in person for six weekends over the course of some nine months starting next fall, the panel would make recommendations to the Council for the 227-acre site that under a 2017 agreement with the FAA would cease to operate as an airport at the end of 2028.
………
The lottery system -- which is not common in North America -- "would result in a panel that demands broad demographic representation, and minimizes the influence of special interests," said the report from Public Works Director Rick Valte.
Previous long-range planning efforts by the City have "suffered tremendous opposition from vocal community members whose resistance to key elements of each plan -- or even the entire plan itself -- resulted in protracted land use battles," the report said.
………
On the other hand, lottery-selected panelists "are everyday people" who "do not have prior experience with the policy topic" and "have a unique capacity for identifying common ground solutions in the public’s best interest.
"Much like a jury trial, they receive a vast amount of information before independently deliberating on recommendations," the report said.
Well, that's one way, and possibly the only way, to screen out the bad actors from the process.
3 comments :
It worked so well in Athens.
Valid point. Care needs taken in its application.
Also, you might want to check out Equality by Lot, they talk about Sortition there. https://equalitybylot.com/
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