It's encouraging when local governing bodies get together to discuss goals, and how to best utilize their collective strength in improving the community as a whole.

Such will be the case this evening when representatives of the Garden City Commission, Finney County Commission, Holcomb City Council, Garden City Community College, Garden City USD 457 and Holcomb USD 363 gather to discuss common goals and how they may be pursued.

The agenda calls for the group to come up with a list of several common goals, pinpoint the top three common goals, then discuss strategies in moving forward.

While no specific areas of interest were released in advance, group members could touch on any number of possibilities ranging from economic and workforce development to battling gangs and graffiti.

As the group outlines its common goals, the hope is it also addresses a need to further explore ways to consolidate services, and other cost-sharing moves that could help ease the burden on local taxpayers at a time budgets are tight for all governing bodies.

Tonight's meeting is set for 7 at Garden City Community College's Student and Community Services Center. It's a public meeting, so citizens may attend.

The six entities also will schedule quarterly group meetings to continue their discussion. In moving forward, it would be encouraging for them to do so with public participation and input in mind.

Televised broadcasts have been effective in delivering City Commission and local school board meetings, and other public discussions citizens can't attend. Organizers of the public entity group meetings could take that a step further and make their sessions more thought-provoking by fielding questions not only from audience members in attendance, but also from those who call in or e-mail questions.

Every elected official should be eager to have such discussions before the folks who pay the bills, and in the most interactive way possible.

After all, it's the public's government. The more opportunities citizens have to observe and guide the people who work for them, the better.

Having representatives of the local governing bodies gather to brainstorm makes sense. Adding to that effort by making input from the people they serve a priority would only boost the possibilities for progress.