Lots of people in my professional life talk about “civic engagement”. Everybody seems to want it. Fran Spielman reports in today’s Sun-Times that the City Clerk’s office had received over 3,100 damage claims due to potholes. That’s thousands of people engaging.
While we don’t always think of civic engagement as people filling out forms and claims, this is civic engagement at it’s core. Thousands of people going through a multi-step process to get reimbursed for a weaknesses of the civic infrastructure— and being paid back by the taxpayers— is about as engaged as one can be. Each year, the Chicago City Clerk‘s office processes thousands of claims for damaged vehicles.
