Irvine’s ‘Contagious Disease of Committee-itis’ Is Diagnosed

Does Irvine suffer from committee-itis? Apparently The Times (Dec. 20) and certain members of the Irvine City Council think so. This assessment is based on the erroneous assumption that local government should be run like a lean, efficient business. Citizenship and civic involvement have become only incidental goals as a result of Irvine’s new “pothole” philosophy of local government.

If Irvine suffers from any malady, it is the autocratic state of mind now prevalent at City Hall, which mistakenly imputes business practices to the art of self-rule. In a representative democracy, local government exists to educate the citizenry in the art of self-governance and to maximize the opportunities appropriate to that education. Because the scale of local politics is small, citizens can have more opportunities to take part in actual governing.

Citizen advisory committees are essential to the educative and policy-making functions of local government. Involving private citizens in the decision-making apparatus of government strengthens its quality and enhances the capacity of individuals for self-rule.

Good government and good citizens emerge from this arrangement because advisory committees foster a sense of civic inclusion and efficacy in the governing process and provide a useful check on the inevitable excesses of bureaucrats.

Advisory committees also make for better decision-making inputs, such as technical expertise, and facilitate important strategic political values, such as the dissemination of information. While surely in need of some functional consolidation, Irvine’s extensive system of citizen advisory committees should be preserved and as the need arises, expanded to enable as many citizens as are willing to participate in the governance and development of their community.

Instead of taking the ax to citizen advisory committees, the City Council would be better advised to reduce staff costs associated with them and to scale back the top administrative hierarchy at City Hall. Purchasing fiscal austerity at the price of citizen empowerment is not much of civic bargain.

Extensive citizen participation in the affairs of local government is a quality that no city can afford to be without.

MARK P. PETRACCA, Irvine