Armchair politician? Try being a local public servant instead.

Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash

About a year ago, my city’s council and mayor put me on the zoning board of appeals.

What does a zoning board of appeals do?

Let’s say that you want to put up a new sign on your building, but the sign you want to put up is bigger than the city ordinance allows.

The zoning board of appeals–five of your fellow citizens and neighbors–will hear your case and either rule in your favor or hold you to the ordinance.

City ordinances may cause drowsiness, but I find each case that comes before us to be thrilling.

Business or property owners come before us and make their best arguments for why the city ordinance is not fair or should not apply in their case. Most of the time, they make strong cases and we rule in their favor.

Sometimes, they just don’t want to be bothered by the city ordinance.

In those cases, we rule against them.

Some of the cases are easy to settle, but some are hard.

For example, a family that planned to move to our city wanted to make a change to the house they bought. That change would not fit the ordinance for the part of town where they wanted to live.

The ordinance was clear, but the board asked if denying the family’s appeal would be in the true spirit of the ordinance. We looked into why the city passed the ordinance in the first place. We found that it was to encourage a neighborly spirit in our city. Would it be neighborly to deny the appeal of a family that wanted to move to our city? Would granting the appeal in this case lead to problems with other appeals later in time? How would granting this family’s appeal affect their new neighbors now and in the future?

In the end, we granted the appeal, let the family make the changes they wanted to make, and welcomed them to our city as our new neighbors.

Business owners bring most of the appeals that we hear. These most often have to do with a change they want to make to their properties. Since businesses are often in the most open and visible parts of town, the city ordinances that apply to businesses are no joke. These cases often draw out a few neighbors who want to tell us how living close to the business affects them.

For example, a big new sign could make it hard for drivers to see people biking or walking along the street.

Or maybe a business wants to put in new lighting that could shine into the windows of the apartments next door.

When we’re dealing with lives and livelihoods, emotions run high. The pressure builds on our board to make the right choice because our choice will affect lives and livelihoods.

And our choice will be final. We don’t want to get it wrong.

What I’ve learned from being on the board of appeals is that making those choices is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Most of the cases that come before us are not “black and white”; they are “gray.” We try to see through the fog made by city ordinances, special circumstances, and the variety of people that those affect in a variety of ways. We know that we can’t make a perfect decision in most cases, so we try to make the best imperfect one.

I’ve learned–more than I knew before joining the board–that ideology does not fit, and is not useful, in local politics and public service.

It is easy to share memes and spout off on social media.

It’s another thing to actually sit on a local board, commission, or council and hash out decisions with lawyers and a public that will hold you to account.

It is one thing to be an “expert” or “influencer” online, but it is another thing to be responsible for making decisions that affect real people in real ways. It is another thing to be on record for making decisions that could turn out to be wrong in the end.

A Facebook friend of mine is what I would call a social media “ideologue.”

Most of what he shared online over the last year was conspiracy theories, grand pronouncements, “prophecies,” and veiled threats against those he perceives to be enemies.

This man, who has no prior political experience, is running for local office.

And I am delighted. I hope he wins.

I cannot wait to watch local politics beat the ideology out of him.

I cannot wait to watch this guy try his social media schtick in the gray area of local politics. His neighbors may agree with his bumper stickers, social media memes, and yard signs, but they will not care one bit how “right” or “righteous” he is when their sidewalk is broken, their street needs plowed, or trash pickup was late again.

And while morals and values are essential to doing the work of local public service, ideology most often gets in the way of getting done what my neighbors need and want me to get done.

The point of this post is that I wish more people who run their mouths would run for local office. Put up or shut up.

I wish more ideologues would get off of social media and onto local boards, commissions, and councils. Ideology is not useful to anyone but the person who gets high off its fumes; public service is useful to everyone in a community–even political enemies and opponents.

And to Christians (who are sometimes the most vocal ideologues), serving enemies is the hallmark of a serious disciple of Jesus Christ.

What better way to serve our enemies than to be their public servants?

Nothing neutralizes ideology like real local public service.

So, if you know an ideologue (or you’re an ideologue yourself), go to your city, township, or village website. Find the local boards, committees, and commissions that need volunteers. Apply or sign up.

We don’t need any more public critics; we need public servants.

This is the Way.

Grace and peace.