Re: How to be an obstructionist in one easy lesson.

[Melynda Huskey <melyndah@mail.wsu.edu>]

Steve Cooke proposes (and I'm not sure if he's playing Devil's Advocate here
or describing his own views) that there's no reason for public or
semi-public decision making bodies to solicit community input:

>If people disagree with your idea, then they may be obstructionists as Steve
>Lyons alleges. If people agree with the idea, then the public discussion
>just slows the process down with perhaps no added benefit. Also if you
>announce your plans for development too far in advance, others will busy
>themselves in the background to maximize the monetary effect for
themselves. . . . 
>Public participation in development decision-making increases the
>transactions costs, i.e., the time it takes to make a decision, in the short
>run and may not add value in the long run. 

What about the possibility that public discussion might improve the idea,
might *add* value?  Or that disagreement might be founded on rational
grounds, from which developers might learn?  Is the goal of public
decision-making bodies to make real the desires of developers as efficiently
as possible, to permit them to maximize their monetary effect without
interference from those sinister others who busy themselves in the background?  

The position Mr. Cooke describes strengthens my own conviction that
considerably greater public input into economic decision-making is required:
when we define the goal of such decisions, even implicitly, as increasing
profit for developers, we are permitting ourselves to be despoiled.  

Melynda Huskey