How satisfied are you with the transparency of the city government?

“In general, (transparency ensures) that the procedure of government and the decision making (are) viewable for the public so the public can see the actions and activities that go on, so they can understand them,” assistant to the city manager Megan McFarland said. “There has been a push towards additional transparency in city government, and we wanted to see how the citizens felt, and get a benchmark or starting point.”

In years past, feelings about various forms of city communication with residents have been relatively consistent in terms of satisfaction.

This year, 61 percent of those asked said they were at all satisfied with the transparency of the city government.

For Community Relations Coalition intern Kevin O’Brien, transparency among citizens is integral to how involved they choose to be in their community.

“It kind of depends on who you are,” O’Brien said. “It’s not like everywhere you turn there’s something regarding city government, but it’s accessible enough if you want to access the information.”

The question of governmental transparency was asked of 400 random participants this year as a way to help the city gauge the effectiveness of new programs put into place this year.

One effort by the city to increase the ability for public interaction is a new software that would allow the city to stream its council and planning commission meetings live on the web, in addition to the live public television broadcasts that already take place each council meeting.
Another program to help increase transparency is the Neighborhood Partnerships Initiative, which was started in the fall.
“We used it to sort of get a benchmark, or starting point,” McFarland said. “… So we know if we’re doing better, (and we can) see if we increase our numbers in the future.”
One concern that was raised by the survey was that of neighborhood involvement.
Eighty-seven percent of participants said an active neighborhood association helps build a strong community, while only 37 percent said they were actively involved in their neighborhood association.
For Bailey neighborhood resident Ryan Adams, being involved in what goes on behind the scenes of East Lansing is important to him, but when it comes to staying up to date with the city, other things come first.
“For me personally, I have a full-time job, a wife and kids,” Adams said. “I don’t have all that much time to focus on things like that … but it seems like things are going in the right direction.”
Though the results of the survey were varied, McFarland said the city will take the results as an opportunity to move forward.
“We were comfortable that it was a majority that was satisfied, (but) there’s room for improvement,” McFarland said. “We sort of expected that and see it as a challenge. We want to see that number to go up.”