Municipal Administrators' Receptivity to Citizens' and Elected Officials' Contacts

One means for citizens to increase the responsiveness of government bureaucracies is through contact with public administrators, either directly or through the intercedence of an elected official. However, the degree of citizen influence will be determined by the attitudes of public administrators to citizen contacts. To assess attitudes toward citizen contacts, public administrators in New Jersey municipalities were surveyed. Most administrators responded that they preferred direct public contacts to those initiated through an elected official; direct contacts were less complicated and provided a better understanding of service problems. However, most administrators refused to compromise with citizens and felt that responding to citizen contacts decreased agency effectiveness. They tended to rely heavily on standard administrative procedures for decision making and to trust their professional perspectives over community preferences.