There is some excuse for those who question the importance of civic engagement. For one thing, the term has become amorphous—covering any action from voting to volunteering. For another, most coverage of the subject is painted with the veneer of “good government,” giving it an air of saccharine sweetness.

This leaves us with the question: Is our participation in the “public square” and our involvement in our communities really consequential?

Like few stories in recent memory, the infamous government scandals uncovered in the City of Bell's government demonstrated the dramatic importance of civic engagement. 1 The debacle in southern Los Angeles County powerfully reveals the importance of civic engagement—in both its political (voting, staying informed) and social (volunteering, working with others) manifestations. For while there are some aspects of the Bell story that are unique, there are others that point to what Harvard professor and New York City Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith has dubbed the “new normal” In local and state governments.

State and federal investigations into the malfeasance committed in the small Los Angeles city continue. What is known at this point, however, is that the process, which resulted in unconscionable salary packages for several city staffers and elected ofcials, began at the ballot box in 2005.

Then, in an election in which less than 1% of Bell's population of 37,000 residents participated, the decision was made to detach the city from state restrictions on municipal compensation. This allowed the city council to set their own and staff's salaries far above the statewide average. Of course, the unethical decisions made by Bell's political leaders are inexcusable, but increasing blame has also been heaped on the city's residents.

A problem that began in an under–utilized voting booth was allowed to fester as Bell's residents either did not, or could not, track their government's spending over a ve–year period. As the Sacramento Bee editorialized, “To ferret out malfeasance, reporters and prosecutors depend on attentive citizens who are helping to watchdog how their money is being spent. As the city of Bell demonstrates, the cost of disengaging is high indeed.” 2

Because decades–long pensions are involved in this asco, if the 2005 election decision is allowed to stand, not only Bell's taxpayers, but taxpayers statewide will be held responsible for millions of dollars in benets payments. What started as a local civic decision has become a real concern to all Californians.

The policies proposed in response to what has occurred have generally tended towards centralization and consolidation. Various calls have come for greater oversight by the State government, but as political commentator Joe Mathews opined, with more than 400 cities and thousands of governing agencies, “The state is in no position to keep an eye on all of California's local governments. It needs citizens, engaged citizens, to be minding the store.” 3

Respected local government thinker and current Ventura City Manager Rick Cole recently proposed a more localized approach, consolidating a number of Los Angeles–area cities (including Bell) into a larger municipality. 4 But while this may, in fact, be a “sensible step” as Cole describes, it illustrates the profound cost of civic disengagement: essentially the death penalty for a locally governed community.

The Bell story is anomalous in many respects, but it does highlight several important issues related to “civic engagement.” The first is one of denition. Although as noted earlier, the phrase civic engagement is used to describe a variety of activities, civic engagement is better understood as including two separate but related categories of involvement. Activities such as voting, staying informed by reading local news sources, or discussing community concerns with your neighbors, constitute the political side of engagement, all of which appeared to be entirely lacking (for a variety of reasons) in Bell. At the same time, there is also a social element to civic engagement.

Eating meals with the family, volunteering, and working with neighbors to x local problems —all of these play an important role in building a healthy community.

The face of local government in California is changing as it confronts scal crises related to the statewide economic crisis. The aforementioned deputy mayor of New York City, Stephen Goldsmith, has popularly titled this era as the “new normal.” A combination of declining revenues and increased expenditures on pensions and retirement benets has resulted in what he describes as an “enduring reality that must be confronted. Crisis is now the norm.” 5 As municipalities—both cities and states—cut back services, the importance of social civic engagement grows tremendously. Goldsmith explains, “Public ofcials who wish to be on the right side of the right sizing movement must create structures that facilitate
participation.” 6

The second issue raised by Bell's predicament is contextual. As in California more broadly, Bell's deteriorating economy is particularly reected in high unemployment rates. Since the global economy began to falter in 2007, California has continued to experience unemployment rates much higher than the national average (12%+), with the Los Angeles–area rating even worse. 7

Along with the rest of California, Bell has a high level of ethnic diversity. Demographics and diversity also help dene the contextual test to civic engagement. In his interesting 2007 study of the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and civic participation, E Pluribus Unum , sociologist Robert Putnam found that diversity generally relates inversely to engagement. 8 In a study of 41 American cities, Putnam and his team of researchers discovered that, while diversity offers great opportunities for creative civic problem–solving in the long–run, it also presents challenges to collaboration related to language and culture (at least in the short–term).

As with so many things related to California, the 2010 California Civic Health Index illustrates both the challenges to and promises of building a healthy civic culture in the state. In both its political and social ndings, the results outlined in this report demonstrate that although Californians confront many hurdles to participation, they are responding positively with several engagement trend lines moving upward.

Civic engagement, both political and social, increases government responsibility and stewardship, helps create effective solutions to political and economic problems, and strengthens the trust of residents for their local governments and of local governments for their residents. Today, in the era of Goldsmith's “new normal,” civic engagement is more vital than ever, especially in a state as diverse as California.

The data discussed in this survey demonstrate that California has great room for improvement when it comes to the civic engagement of its residents. But they also suggest that there has been and will continue to be progress in this area. At a time when the prognosis for traditional political processes in the State of California looks particularly bleak, residents and community leaders have an opportunity to work together in new ways to nd new processes to replace those that are failing. This year, the Bell Scandal sparked renewed concern in the condition of local government for many Californians, and may prove a valuable catalyst for motivating civic engagement.

Civic engagement is a process that must be learned by both governments and private citizens. But it is a process that can be learned and expanded throughout the State of California. As we head into the second decade of the new millennium facing unique social and economic challenges, there is no better time to learn these lessons.