Citizen Engagement scores continue to decline for Raleigh

Every election cycle Livable Raleigh commissions a professional poll* to find out what the voters of Raleigh think. We ask many of the same questions each cycle so we can gauge progress over time. One question we have asked every cycle is:

Generally speaking, do you think the City Council is doing enough to keep citizens involved and informed about Raleigh government or not?

Positive responses to this question have steadily declined since we first asked in 2022. From 23% in 2022 down to 21% in 2024 and finally dropping to 18% this year. 23% is bad enough. But, steadily dropping to an embarrassing 18% is shocking.

This despite the creation of a new Community Engagement Department specifically designed to address this problem and increasing both the funding and number of employees for this department in every budget cycle. This engagement department was created as a response to the void that resulted when the City Council in 2020 defunded the CACs (Citizen Advisory Councils) in a surprise move hatched behind closed doors and with no public input. It doesn’t seem to be working.

Another recent example of bad community engagement may help explain how these numbers keep getting worse. City Council Retreat, here we go again.  This gives the details of how the city just planned a retreat without telling the people when it is or where it is. These retreats are public meetings. The public is supposed to be informed of them.

* Polling was done by Public Policy Polling, a nationally recognized, Raleigh based, professional polling organization. The poll is statistically significant and demographically aligned with Raleigh’s population.