The ideas of “public participation” and “civic engagement” call to mind many different well-worn images, like that of the classic public forum, where laypersons gather to hear from and offer comments to policymakers, or the paper version of the public forum, notice-and-comment procedures to gather public input as part of administrative rulemaking. Yet most of these images represent particularly thin forms of participation. Such fora or comment procedures fall short of ideals of civic power in myriad ways. The participants are necessarily limited to a self-selected, and therefore often more well-resourced or well-connected, constituency. Many participants in public fora are passive spectators. Those who do show up to speak may not have the expertise or language to make their arguments persuasive to decision-makers. Even if they do, the decision-makers have little accountability to respond to or follow the requests of the public. When the meeting or comment period ends, there is rarely any follow-up.