21 May 1998 marked the new beginning for Indonesia, known as The Reformation, following the resignation of President Soeharto after ruling the country for 32 years. Since then, Indonesia has embarked on a decentralization program that shifts the central to sub-national decision-making functions. However, 20 years later, Indonesia still experiences inconsistency in managing this democratic approach, especially involving the public. Firstly, the long period of centralization during the Soeharto's era has left and ignored the local governments to equip the capacity to plan and produce public goods (Nasution, 2016) . Secondly, the local authorities tend to shape the region based on their perceptions and interest, which exploit the resources unsustainable to maximize the local income, ignoring the citizens' social economy and political condition (Firman, 2010) . This essay will capture the phenomenon above in the form of the community engagement process in the recent project of Ne...