E-democracy.org

MIDWAY RESIDENT RETIRES AS FORUM MANAGER OF E-DEMOCRACY.ORG

By JAN WILLMS
In today�s frenetically paced society, what is the best way to get the
attention of policy-makers and the media?
How do you draw attention to a special neighborhood issue? With so many
layers of democracy, how do you draw the ear of your local council member?
For many, the method has been simple and effective. Go online to
www.e-democracy.org/stpaul.
The St. Paul Issues Forum (SPIF) has been providing an avenue for
information and discussion of local matters for the past six years, under
the umbrella of e-democracy.org, an organization that is non-partisan and
has no political agenda.
E-democracy.org began about 10 years ago, creating space online where other
organizations can come and raise issues, according to Tim Erickson, who
recently retired from his position as forum manager for SPIF. Other local
issues forums include Minneapolis and Winona.
�SPIF is like an online town hall meeting,� Erickson said. �We have been
able to bring together media, citizens and officials to talk about whatever
issues they choose.�
He said many reporters use the site for background information. They can
also contact officials through the website and receive a call back. He said
that SPIF is very much a local project, with the actual management of the
forum done by him and an informal group of advisors. Almost all of the
operation has been done on a volunteer basis.
�SPIF is many to many,� he stated. �Everybody can communicate with
everybody.�

�I really enjoyed the discussions and set up my own website, politalk.com,
where people could talk about particular issues for two weeks at a time. I
started facilitating online discussions locally, nationally and
internationally.

�E-democracy.org has become a full-time thing for me,� Erickson stated. He
said he still does at least one big event a year for Politely. He also
recently did online student conferences from over 70 countries.
Erickson�s retirement from SPIF is more like a transition. He will be
focusing on new forum development, hoping to help other communities get
started. Last summer a delegation from the United Kingdom came to Minnesota
and also visited the state Capitol. The group was familiar with the issues
forums and wanted to start them in the UK.

�They gave us a grant to develop things in the UK, and I went over for a
week to provide some training,� Erickson related. �We received funding for
training materials and developing a pilot project over there.�

�More and more, we find the community is getting interested in what we have
done,� Erickson said. He has spent part of his time going out and talking to
district and city councils, trying to get government officials involved.

�Having people from City Hall and District Councils participate makes it
interesting,� Erickson said, �and keeps it from being just a complaint
forum.� Erickson said that the biggest issue in recent months has been the
smoking ban. Other topics of discussion have includes light rail, the
Peanuts statues, herbicide spraying and Home Depot and Menards moving to
University Avenue.

Erickson said he serves as a mediator and referee for the online
discussions, and this position has brought him both kudos and hate mail, but
he has thoroughly enjoyed his facilitative role.

He is also a member of the Deliberate Democracy Consortium, a network of
organizations that involve citizens in Internet discussion about public
policy. Erickson attended a workshop in Brazil to talk about people getting
involved in forming policy, especially in developing countries.

He said the online website is also an opportunity for participants who may
be too shy to voice their thoughts at a public meeting to express their
opinions through the Internet.
�SPIF is an interactive e-mail discussion on important issues about St. Paul
public policy,� he noted.
�Participation is free and open to everyone.�
Currently there are about 350 concerned citizens and community leaders
subscribed to the discussion.

(Reprinted with permission of the Midway Como Monitor, June 2005)