By Matt PresserThe Daily Northwestern

Call me an expert on inefficient governments. After all, I wrote about the Evanston City Council for six months. During that time, I witnessed a community abuzz about whether a 14-year-old Evanston Township High School sophomore should be allowed to keep a swarm of bees in his backyard.

I reviewed draft after draft of an affordable housing ordinance that was first deemed unconstitutional after being approved, and after further revisions was later vetoed by the same mayor who seemed perfectly fine with the unconstitutional version.

I talked to city officials about why they hate Northwestern and why they wish it would surrender its prime lakefront property. And I talked to NU administrators who couldn’t understand why the city was disgruntled with the pittance the university tosses into the city’s coffers in comparison to what the city would receive if NU’s land was, say, taxed.

My new role as campus editor lets me apply what I’ve learned in Evanston to a government that isn’t all that different.

In this month alone, Associated Student Government has pursued issues that affect only a small group of people (prayer space for Muslim sports fans), has revisited some old news (the Laptop ER program that is either a huge success or a criminal failure, depending on whom you ask) and has belabored a dead issue (trying to get Chicago Transit Authority U-Passes for all students).

The difference, I guess, is that the Evanston City Council actually has the power to do things. (So what if they just, in many cases, can’t do it very well?)

ASG, in comparison, sees putting a poll on HereAndNow as a measure of success. But do we really need a government body to decide whether a poll should go on a Web site?

The problem, of course, is that the only people who are going to vote in these polls are the people who are excited and drawn in by the two words that all too frequently find themselves together: ASG Poll.

Why not dispatch ASG senators to impromptu polling stations by the Rock, outside Starbucks and next to CVS? Actually seek people out rather than just waiting for them to hand over their opinions.

Hey, if we at The Daily can find random people to quote for stories about the effectiveness of studying at coffee shops or whether cell phone service should be improved at Norris University Center, you too can bug people on the street about their thoughts on expanding on-campus wireless connectivity or university-wide efforts to be more environmentally friendly.

Imagine, just for a second, ASG senators actually talking to their constituents and finding out what they want. What if senators were knocking on doors, setting up meetings and placing suggestion boxes, not just sending out e-mails that just get thrown away?

I never thought I’d say it, but maybe they can even learn something from how the city of Evanston does it.

Some aldermen hold monthly meetings with their constituents to get a feeling for what issues matter to Evanston residents – from saving the city’s Dutch Elm trees from disease to figuring out ways to prevent intoxicated NU students from turning up on their front lawns.

The city’s Web site lets you type in your residence and figure out who your alderman is. Good luck figuring out your ASG senator.

As a result, even if they don’t have Buffalo chicken wraps named after them, Evanston’s aldermen are thrust into the public limelight, recognized at events, stopped on the street and thanked or harassed about important issues.

So just imagine if ASG didn’t settle for a steady stream of online polls to find out what issues students care about.

Maybe then there would be some worthy issues up for debate.

Campus editor Matt Presser is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].