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March 29, 2007: Successful Community Engagement
Workshop Proceedings
Mr. Gardner opened the conference by discussing overarching themes that defined successful community engagement. These included managing expectations of time and results, balancing control and ownership, monitoring and assessment, and switching the conversation from one of criticism to one of dialogue. He discussed the challenge of letting go of ownership without abandoning public decision-making responsibility. Mr. Gardner related these themes to experiences he had as Oakland City Manager during the development of the Community Development Block Grant Program, the Loma Prieta Earthquake, and the Oakland Hills firestorm. He also discussed how regional agencies need to better engage local governments during regional efforts such as the current FOCUS project. ---
Mr. Amsler discussed the idea of collaborative governance, which is a policymaking strategy that involves partnerships between government, community members and other stakeholders. Key features of collaborative governance include:
(1) A reasoned back and forth discussion between all parties involved The role of government in collaborative governance shifts from the solitary decision maker to a partner (albeit the one with final control) in a team of decision makers. The responsibilities of government then become understanding what it is that the public values, what outcomes it desires in terms of public knowledge, and assessing the success of their efforts. Mr. Amsler discussed lessons for successful collaborative governance that have come up from his past experiences in civic engagement processes. • Assessment is necessary to learn from past processes. • History and respect are what really “fire people up.” Therefore the government needs to look back in history and do groundwork to alleviate historical problems before expecting feedback/involvement from the community. • Communication creates the willingness to participate, so governments need to be clear about what they are doing with community feedback and needs to follow up after community meetings. • Governments must determine from the outset if they are asking for input or trying to persuade residents. • Governments need to plan for the process-is everyone on same page? What is the timeline? • Governments must have clear expectations and an understanding of the limitations of the process. • Politics is a fact of life-there are no situations or tools in a process that will be apolitical. • Processes should be designed to look for differences so all people have an opportunity to voice opinion now. • Decisions are about making choices between levels of good, not good and bad. Citizens understand that there are trade-offs. • Scale must be considered in order to design appropriate communication strategies and get the best bang for the buck. In the end, the largest question surrounding community processes are: Do we continue to have processes that focus on one issue or do we imbed collaborative governance into the governmental role to build a long-term and more inclusive approach to local government? Supplemental Video
Links
Document recommended in Terry Amsler's talk: Standards of Excellence in Civic Engagement (pdf) Terry Amsler's PowerPoint presentation Institute for Local Government --- Panel One - Community Based Planning Initiatives Panel Summary
Each of the four panelists discussed ongoing or recently completed planning processes. There were a number of common strategies used in the processes, including involving a diverse group of interests (property owners, community members, elected officials, city department heads), obtaining community involvement early in the process and maintaining it throughout the process, disseminating information to as many people as possible, and having clear goals and policies before the process that help to define principles to guide discussions. Lori Reese-Brown described a number of innovative community engagement strategies the City of Richmond used in their General Plan Update process, including using a “plan van” that travels around Richmond and creating a youth visioning program that seeks to engage school children in the update process. Since community members felt left out from the previous General Planning process, the city had to redouble its efforts to include them. Each panelist presented lessons that they learned from their process. David Rizk stressed that community involvement is important because “nobody knows their community better than the residents,” and that they should be continually engaged during the planning and plan implementation processes. Hayward relied on an active, up-to-date website that includes a video of the project. Tom Lai focused on having a strong vision before the process that can guide the process, and building financial feasibility into the plan. According to Lai, the process allowed Marin County to implement its General Plan vision in a specific location. The area became controversial when a home and garden chain expressed interest in the site. Community members, represented by a seven-member association with its own webpage and blog, advocated for a grocery store. The visioning process gave the property owner increased certainty and gave the community a forum to voice their desires and concerns. A lesson from the project was to watch the budget. They still do not know if the proposed project, which includes a grocery store, townhomes, and apartments, is financially feasible. Allison Brooks stressed the importance of having a full-time coordinator on the planning process in order to maintain working relationships and fight fires. She also stressed making community events fun for people so they will want to attend. At one of the events that Brooks planned, they rented a bounce house and had local bands perform. During the question and answer session, all panelists agreed that the active support of elected officials was essential to the success of any planning process. Supplemental Video
Links
PowerPoint presentations:
Tom Lai |
David Rizk |
Lori Reese-Brown |
Allison Brooks Marin County Community Development Agency South Hayward BART - Mission Blvd Area Study City of Richmond General Plan Update --- Panel Two - Other Civic Engagement Processes Moderator, Pat Kernighan l-r:
Malka Kopell, Ed Everett, Juan Borrelli Panel Summary
The community processes highlighted in the second panel moved beyond community input to allow community members to become decision makers. In these processes, community members were presented with real choices and had to balance the pros and cons of their choices as decision makers do. For example, Malka Kopell from Community Focus discussed Menlo Park’s budget survey, in which residents were asked to prioritize city services which would then be reflected in the City’s budget. Community members were also given responsibility for the process, in that the process was directly and explicitly dependent upon their efforts. Juan Borrelli discussed the City of San Jose’s Strong Neighborhood Initiative, in which Neighborhood Advisory Committees, composed of residents and other people from the community, are the decision-making bodies for the development of neighborhood plans. Ed Everett discussed creating contracts between the city and residents, in which each party is directly responsible for a number of tasks. Juan Borrelli and Ed Everett discussed how to build sustainability into community processes, so there is a base of community support and activity that can support and direct city initiatives. Ed Everett discussed Redwood City’s approach to community building, which includes citizen leadership academies, community forums, and speaker series on planning and community issues. Both discussed creating community leaders that can then carry out outreach activities using their networks. Ed Everett in particular focused on letting the community lead the process with City staff and elected officials serving only as consultants to the residents. This creates ownership of the decisions, and makes them more sustainable in the long-term. During the question and answer session, the panelists discussed how to break through a fundamental disagreement among different groups. Panelists suggested deliberately bringing the leaders of the different groups to the table early in the process, so they can hammer out disagreements and reach a consensus around an issue. Ed Everett responded to a question about diversity by stating that his goal is to build an “association of associations,” where each neighborhood has a strong base of participation, and each neighborhood has leaders that then participate in citywide issues. Finally, panelists had a number of suggestions for dealing with troublesome residents that attempt to take over the process. These suggestions included doing your homework ahead of time so as to not include them on advisory committees, not having a head podium or “target” for the person to focus on, and the benefits of creating smaller groups for discussion, which allows the other community members to control the person. Supplemental Video
Links
PowerPoint presentations:
Juan Borrelli |
(no PowerPoint for Ed Everett) |
Malka Kopell City of San Jose Strong Neighborhoods Initiative --- Vice Mayor Quan wrapped up the conference. She discussed the challenges and importance of civic engagement and its relevance to her experiences in Oakland. Co Sponsors: Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Institute for Local Government, East Bay Community Foundation For Information contact Jennifer Krebs,
Senior Environmental Planner |
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Welcoming Remarks
Keynote Speaker - Overview of
Collaborative Governance Issues
Concluding Remarks