Citizen Satisfaction With Public Meetings: When You Have It and When You Don’t. K. A. McComas, Cornell University
What happens when citizens are dissatisfied with the public participation methods used in risk management efforts? This paper investigates public opinion about public meetings held during local environmental controversies. Specifically, the study examines factors contributing to citizen satisfaction with public meetings, and what this satisfaction meant for the government agencies conducting the meetings. Residents of two upstate New York communities received mailed surveys following a public meeting held about a local hazardous waste site. Among those responding (N=286) were residents who participated in the public meeting and those who did not. Analysis indicated that satisfaction did not significantly differ between these two groups; however, the results did indicate that citizen satisfaction with public meetings was significantly related to the perceived quality of communication at public meetings, e.g., whether citizens believed those in charge were genuinely interested in listening to citizens’ comments, whether citizens believed their comments would make a difference, whether citizens believed alternative viewpoints were welcome, etc. The results also showed that citizen satisfaction was a strong predictor of source credibility judgments and risk perceptions. That is, individuals who were more satisfied with public meetings also tended to perceive the sources (here, the government agencies conducting the public meetings) as more credible and the risks from the hazardous waste site as less severe, and vice versa. Overall, the results suggest that efforts taken to increase citizen satisfaction with the methods of public participation may have added benefits for risk management efforts.
Work supported by a U.S. EPA STAR Fellowship.
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