Manipulating Public Opinion

West Broadway Development Corporation held a community consultation on the future of the Sherbrook Street Community Garden last weekend. While community
consultation is desireable, it does matter why and how it is carried out. In West Broadway, a constituency that is increasingly pessimestic about the fate of the urban environment is coming to agree with anlaysts of the nuclear debate in Sweden:

"Mechanisms for public involvement may increase direct public influence on the formation of policy, or may merely inform policy makers about public concerns. More often they are a means to manipulate public opinion, to win acceptance of decisions already made, and to facilitate the implementation of these decisions'

WBDC does not intend to consult further with those parts of the community which it realizes are unlikely to change its position on the value of the community garden.
Initial inclusion will be for the sake of distinguishing 'opposition' likely to thwart a desired outcome ('effect') from that which is likely to be ineffective even if it is discomforting ('noise'). The reason for doing this is that the WBDC wants to manage and control the debate.
It is believed that failure to agree with the plans of WBDC is based on ignorance and the failure of the community to recognize what is in their own best interests. The ignorance can be overcome if the appropriate information is supplied. WBDC will supply their version of the information and everyone should be reassured. When they control the agenda they set the tone of the discussion and delimit the topics.

Those who would not delimit topics are catetorized and dismissed as either, ignorant, having vested interests or being not concerned with the public interest.

'All environmentalists welcome moves towards more public participation in decision-making. However we must be able to distinguish between genuine attempts to involve the public in determining policies and attempts to use public consultation as a means to gain acceptance for proposals that have already been decided upon.' If the latter is the case WBDC is simply orchestrating a public relations exercise.