How does your organization demonstrate public service and/ or urban governance?
During my internship here at Maricopa county, one of the first projects I contributed to was the Customer Engagement project. The county does offer services to its residents in a sense they provide that public service of offering the services that are funded by taxpayer dollars. Those taxpayers have a say in some decisions being that people vote for the people that would best represent their interests and needs. County leaders noticed that the people of Maricopa County didn't have much of a say in decisions outside of the voting process. I am thrilled to be a part of the process to open Maricopa County up to a more open and urban form of governance with the people having a presence and weight of decisions being made. Below is some of the initial planning I did regarding social media and how an open form of government can be made accessible online. 
After researching different types of engagement and governance strategies, we found that one of the common denominators in many counties and cities that struggled to connect with their citizen participation in government, was that there was a common mistrust and anger in government. The solution to this among the counties and cities that we looked at as examples was to keep the people informed.
Mistrust/ Anger in Government
Solutions:
Information:
Informing the citizens is the first step to catalyze public participation. Information will assist the public in understanding the problem(s), alternatives, opportunities and solutions. Our promise to the public will be to rapidly communicate official information to public as part of department's core mission or responsibilities to the county. By making a promise to the public, this will promote the organizational TIRA model that outlines Transparency, Inclusiveness, Responsiveness, and Accountability within public organizations.
Our Social Media/Online policies state that information should support and address departments mission, or as directed by the County Manager. With information provided to the public we then seek to build a community of knowledge and understanding of county happenings.
Information for citizens can be made available through fact sheets, accessible websites, and open house events. For example, county’s like Leon County have improved the way their county engages and involves citizens with government. Leon County established a Citizen Engagement Series that promotes citizen involvement to guide policy and shape the community. Part of this engagement series features a participatory based budget game called Let’s Balance, an immersive hands-on budgeting exercise that offers citizens a firsthand view of the county budgeting process. Leon County’s engagement series seeks to convey the relevance of government and enhance transparency by providing citizens with knowledge.
I like the idea of a participative-type model that Maricopa County has. It's always great to get a sense of what the people want because ultimately that's who we answer to as public servants.
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