Town Hall Hell
September 2009

US President Barak Obama is back from vacation. I think he needed it. And I think just about every member of Congress needed one, too. They have, after all, been spending the last month or so organizing town hall meetings to “discuss” the President’s proposed health care reform package. I put quotation marks around the word discuss because there really hasn’t been a lot of discussion about the proposed reforms. There’s been a lot of yelling, name calling, hyperbole and some disturbing visuals depicting the President as Hitler.

As a spectator in the health care debate, it’s more than a little disappointing to see what should be a good debate devolve into an ongoing series of ugly photo ops.

Of course, it didn’t have to be this bad. It could have been much more civilized and, dare I say it, much more conducive to productive discussions about the issues.

Although there is more than one problem with the public consultations, I believe the biggest one is how US politicians are utilizing the good old town hall meeting.

Generally, when people think about consulting with the public about an issue, the image of a town hall meeting pops into mind. Can’t you visualize it? A stuffy high school gym or recreation centre, a table up front with a speaker, a bunch of microphones scattered around the room. We’ve all seen them.

And town hall-style meetings can be fine. I’ve seen them work well. But I’ve never seen them work well for a contentious issue. Not once. Here’s why:

• They create an event; a small window of action. It concentrates things and emotions into a short span of time. They create the perfect photo op, and not the good kind
• It sets up the perfect opportunity for grandstanding. Protestors love it when you’ve done all the work for them and have assembled an audience
• It’s simply too tough to control. No facilitator can be expected to control a room full of highly charged people, regardless of whether there is a formal agenda. On more than one occasion I’ve seen a participant stand up, grab a microphone and ask the room to vote on whether the agenda should be followed or not. It’s just plain ugly
• It shows favouritism to those who are comfortable in front of an audience. Time after time there are reports and studies released that show, in general, people are more afraid of public speaking than anything else – even death. To create an atmosphere that effectively penalizes those too nervous to walk to a microphone in the middle of a loud, hostile room certainly isn’t inclusive nor is it conducive to rationale dialogue

Now perhaps there are other, legitimate reasons why the congressional outreach opted for a town hall style. Maybe they honestly thought they’d hear more positive than negative. I don’t know.

What I do know, however, is that Communicor has extensive experience in public consultations on a host of highly-charged topics. And I also know that we’ve been able to turn potential disasters into productive consultations resulting in meaningful feedback and stakeholder support. We’ve been able to do so because we’ve challenged the default option of a town hall style meeting and come up with creative, structural solutions to consultation problems.

Alas, I guess the President misplaced our business card.