Elgin Civics Club hoping to boost interest in local government

Maybe, just maybe, the Elgin Civics Club can do for local government what the TV show “Mad Men” did for all things retro — make it cool again.

That's certainly his hope, Elgin City Manager Sean Stegall said, but data shows people's waning interest in local government combined with the pressure of busy and mobile lives spells an uphill battle for the club.

“However, I know the people associated with (the club) very well, and they don't give up very easily,” Stegall said Monday during a presentation at the club's first “community dialogue” monthly series at the Gail Borden Public Library. “What I wanted to do, first and foremost, was send a message of how important the work is that the Elgin Civics Club is doing ... how critical it is.”

The club, a nonpartisan group formed in late 2014, aims to increase civic engagement and voter turnout in local elections. Elgin's turnout in April was 11.4 percent, which means more than 48,000 registered voters didn't show up at the polls, club co-founder Tonya Lucchetti-Hudson said.

It's also become difficult to find residents who want to serve on city boards and commissions, and to get input from residents in today's “gotcha,” entertainment-driven society, Stegall said. The city has been proactive through initiatives such as 311 and its smartphone app, which make it easier for residents to contact and interact with the city, he said.

While social media is great at connecting people, individuals still need to make the effort to participate, he said. Meeting in person with elected officials, along with calling and emailing them, are much more effective ways to spur action than Facebook, he said, citing data from “The Advocacy Gap” by Fission Strategy.

“Communities need to be more than chat rooms, instant messages and emojis,” he said, later adding, “You're not going to build a playground on Facebook. You're not going to rehabilitate an old home through Twitter.”

The immediacy of social media can be positive, but also can backfire from the pressure to resolve quickly minor issues, Stegall said.

For example, the city spent thousands of dollars in staff time in August for a downtown parking spot problem that people complained about on Facebook, he said. Calling 311 to report that would have set the process in motion with the same result, but fewer wasted resources, he said.

Resident Susan Van Weelden said she was impressed by Stegall's presentation and the club's mission.“I like their point of not only trying to increase the turnout, but trying to increase the fact that voters are informed, to be able to make better choices.”

The club has been giving civics presentations in local schools, plus an upcoming one for fourth-graders at Creekside Elementary School, Lucchetti-Hudson said.

That's a great initiative, said Van Weelden, a former schoolteacher and dean at Elgin Community College. “It's so important that we begin with educating citizens as to how to be better informed — and be better citizens,” she said.

That's exactly why club member Angelina Muniz brought her 6-year-old daughter to Monday night's meeting. The two of them participated in the club's “Walk the Vote” initiative before the April election and in a voter awareness event at the library, she said. “I just want her to be aware, so that when she's 18 she can go vote and it's just automatic.”

People have become more “inward-focused,” Stegall said, using a euphemism for “self-centered.” For example, the usage in books of the word “get” has increased exponentially compared to the word “give” in the last two centuries, yet being active in the community is correlated with increased well-being, Stegall said, citing data quoted by CBS News from a journal of the Association of Psychological Science and Gallup Analytics.

Muniz said she found the time to volunteer for the club while juggling a full-time job and classes at ECC. “I was always interested in local (politics) because I knew it affected me personally more than federal elections,” she said. “But I didn't know about the (voter) turnout, and how low it was.”

The club in October hopes to host Tony Sanders, CEO of Elgin Area School District U-46.