Having citizen participation is very important to our government initiatives. This is how the U.S. can improve customer satisifaction in government. Enhancing citizen participation is allowing citizens to be apart of the decision making process. Having transparency is being open. I think President Obama said it best "Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made". The American people are demanding more open government, to many people in the past have made decsion about them and it was not in the best interest of them. I do believe the American people are starting to figure out the more they particiapate the more they are informed. This can be done be town hall meeting, brainstorming sessions, connecting with real issues that affects them personally. Why is this important, public participation is the essential in American participation in government, our views should be open to all, accessible, and transparent.

This promises to offer communities insight into a variety of ways to engage citizens in public policy issues. There have been a myriad of tools and techniques developed over the past 4 years that include citizens in "decision-making" and "choice-creating". It's exciting to see the shift from random selection to large group engagement processes like the Community Forum that was a citizen initiative passed into law in King Co., Washington. The more people involved in learning about issues and sharing their opinions the more educated they become to make wiser choices to benefit the broader community.