Tacoma, Washington: The City of Destiny

I live in the city Tacoma within Pierce County. I am working towards beginning a national conscious impact initiative that works to empower individuals to create social change within their communities through conscious use of technology. There’s been significant twists and turns in planning things out. However, with our big dreams it is inevitable we will have to become familiar with local government and their process behind human/community outreach services.

I decided to start looking into my local government and see what information is available for citizens of Pierce County regarding community outreach services. What I have found is more than troubling, and I wanted to share just a little bit of my experience so far. I also want to explain how I intend to get a better understanding of my local government’s processes and resources, and share my experience in doing so.

Finding Local Government Community Outreach Services

Starting from the Pierce County homepage it’s easy to find information about government, county services, and business but not so clear as to what I should look for to find community resources or where I might find it. There is a link at the bottom that provides us access to a page with information on the 2018 budget and how to get involved, but that’s about it in terms of community engagement from the Pierce County homepage. 

To find community services you have to actually look for human services underneath the services tab. Underneath the businesses tab, I was encouraged to find a link to a site for Pierce County’s economic development board. Unfortunately, I could find little information about actual economic development; Instead, I found information regarding businesses and aimed at bringing new businesses into Tacoma-Pierce County but nothing about ACTUAL economic development within the area:

“Economic development is the process by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people.”

What's the Bigger Priority? Community Engagement or Bringing in More City Dollars?

Now keep in mind, there is an entire website dedicated to Pierce County’s Economic Development board:  

with an attractive user interface and well organized information. While, the actual economic development initiatives, they call ‘human services’, are only listed on the pierce county webpage. The user interface is confusing, disorganized, and hard to navigate.

Only the Beginning

This is just a snippet of what I have been finding throughout my local government research and it's sad to say, things get even sadder from here. I've taken it upon myself to take tonight to sift through the human services webpage and see what I can find. Tomorrow, I am going to have a final draft of questions for the PCHS dept. and on Friday morning, I am going to do everything I can to reach out to the human services department with a list of questions regarding their human services and priorities in community engagement and outreach. I will be reporting the answers on Steemit as well.

The Importance of Understanding Local Government for Imagine Conscious Collective

This is just the start of many encounters ICC will have with local governments, and is really a way for us to test the waters in speaking to public officials about community outreach initiatives. The end goal is for us to walk away from this conversation with a better understanding of how local policymakers within the scope of community impact, coordinate and execute community service programs and initiatives. Because in order to create social change, interaction with local governments will be inevitable. It is also important for us to see how firmly funded community initiatives are carried out to get an idea of what all is possible with a fully funded organization and how we might help improve their processes.

Please, take a look at the website for yourself and see what information you can find! Or, check out your own local government resources. How important is it that information about community services be accessible to citizens? What role should local policymakers play in community development and engagement? What services do you think should be provided for economic impact by local government boards?