EFFECTIVE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Every day in cities and towns across the U.S., ordinary people are proving # that democracy CAN still effect positive changes and make society better. #Activists are making their voices heard. They’re opening up local government, so it’s more transparent. They’re...
SEWER TOUR
This is what good government looks like. Good government looks like the sewer district superintendent coming into work on a Saturday morning to enthusiastically take a group of his customers – citizens who pay taxes to provide for a sewer system for their community –...
What Has To Be Present to Fix Corruption?
If you’ve read my book, The Happiest Corruption, Sleaze, Lies, & Suicide in a California Beach Town, or signed up for my online course, Double Dias: Adventures in Local Government, you’ll have picked up a message that runs through them, and through many of the...
What Fuels the Machine? Fear Fuels it and Greed Runs it.
I tell the story of three political machines in my THE HAPPIEST CORRUPTION: Sleaze, Lies, & Suicide in a California Beach Town. They are focused in different American communities, even in different centuries, but the stories echo through decades and across the...
The 5 Biggest Mistakes Concerned Citizens Make
Today I'm going to share with you the five most common mistakes people make when trying to establish good governance in their communities. Mistake 1 they don’t speak in public meetings – if your elected representatives don’t know what matters to you, and if you don’t...
The #1 Secret to Getting What You Want From City Hall
Today I'm going to share with you the number one secret to getting what you want from city hall. In a nutshell, the number one secret to getting good governance is to SHOW UP. I know that sounds too simple, but let me explain... If you have good elected...
This is What I Love About The Scots
There’s something about Scotland and its people that takes hold of you. Once you go, it never really leaves your heart. Look at how Heather Brooks, an investigative journalist from Edinburgh, Scotland cleaned house at the Houses of Parliament in London. Here’s how her...
Disrupting Corruption
I have always cringed at labels. Somehow they seem to limit and confine, rather than free and define. It has taken me years, but I have finally grudgingly agreed with a friend that I am one of the “ORIGINAL” Progressives : the ones my Republican grandparents embraced...
Having Your Say – STAGE PRESENCE
Sometimes it ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it. Sometimes no matter how you say it, it won’t work. How to address the council. Not only are public meetings live, but they are also often videotaped or preserved on Zoom. Like anything else, how you look,...
The First Amendment
As my friend, the constitutional attorney says, “There’s a reason the First Amendment is the FIRST amendment in both our state and national constitutions!” It is the most important. That reason has a lot to do with the tyranny the founding fathers were escaping in...