After three years working as a Senior Fellow at a Seattle-based think tank focusing on surface transportation best practices, and, among other things, founding a blog there, I moved on in early January to a new position with a new organization. I'm now the Director of Countywide Community Forums, a privately-underwritten public engagement program which connects citizen advisors to King County government through small group meetings on designated issues, such as public safety, budget priorities, and transportation solutions. King County includes Seattle and another 38 cities, plus unincorporated areas. It's a geographically distinct region studded with beautiful mountains and water, abundant wildlife, and a robust economy including Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon.com, the University of Washington, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and countless other important enterprises, non-profits, and advocacy groups.

King County is also a place where folks are pretty passionate about politics and public policy, although in typical Seattle-area style, they manage to appear fairly dispassionate about their passion. And in my own view, that's actually a pretty good thing. Passion is wonderful, and energizing, but when it comes to politics and policy, too much of it leads to polarization. And political polarization is poison. More than ever, we need to be talking across the divide, not "narrowcasting" to like-minded brethren only.

King County provides regional bus service, law enforcement in many parts of the county outside Seattle, criminal and civil courts, prisons, public health and social services, wastewater treatment, parks, elections management, property tax assessments, and more. It's elected leadership is composed of a county executive, Dow Constantine, who happens to hail from my very own neighborhood of West Seattle, and nine county council members elected by district. They've got a lot of business to attend to, and they want to hear from you - not only in the usual ways such as e-mails, letters, phone calls, and through testimony at large public meetings, but also through the more considered and intimate dialogs - held at times and places convenient to you - that are CCF's stock in trade.

So, I'm glad to be part of this endeavor, which I've described in more detail in this post at the new blog I've founded for CCF, called "Social Capital Review." One other recent post is all about the "data liberation" movement beginning to sweep the halls of government. It's titled "Doing Government 2.0 The Right Way In Seattle." Another, by my colleague Carrie Shaw, a deputy citizen councilor coordinator for CCF, is titled, "Public Safety: A 'Paramount Duty' Of Government?" It reflects on new concerns raised about increased crime in downtown Seattle, and connects that with the work CCF councilors did just last autumn highlighting public safety issues in Seattle and elsewhere in King County. We're also looking forward to contributions by CCF's other deputy citizen councilor coordinator, John Spady, who like Carrie brings a wealth of experience and insight to the effort.

The main section at Social Capital Review is devoted to posts where we add some of our own perspectives, like the three linked above. Another section called "News Hub" helps keep track of some of the many stories flying by each week, in the public engagement and Government 2.0 spaces.

If these topics are of interest, come visit Social Capital Review. There will be fresh material several times weekly, and we'd welcome your comments on the articles. As well, if you live in King County, we'd love for you to register as a CCF citizen councilor, here. The next round will run from April 17 through the end of May. This time around, we'll be convening small group meetings to get feedback on how King County can improve trust in government, constituent service and public engagement.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 2, 2010 06:20 PM