Democracy inaction from the creators of 'The Office'

Thursday, April 9, 2009

By MARC D. ALLAN

Greg Daniels and Michael Schur think small-city government can be hilarious, and they'll try to prove it with "Parks and Recreation." Shot in "The Office"-style mock-documentary form, their sitcom stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, an ambitious, ever-optimistic bureaucrat in the fictional community of Pawnee, Ind. She works with a brick wall of a boss who thinks government is a waste of money, a city planner she likes, an ambitious colleague and a clueless intern.

The main story line finds Leslie trying to help a local nurse turn an abandoned pit into a city park, but Daniels said the show really is about "the anarchy of low-level democracy and how hard it is to get stuff accomplished."

Before delving into this world, Daniels and Schur did their research. They scoured newspapers, watched various city council meetings on the Web and talked to government officials who told stories about parks that took decades to build.

"We assumed, like many people do, that the primary reason things take a long time is bureaucracy and red tape _ and there's a bit of that," Schur said. "But if you ask 100 people what to do with (a parcel of land), they'll have 100 different ideas."

"That's one of the themes of the show," Daniels added. "How do you get something decided when everybody has a vote and nobody reports to anybody?"