March 04, 2003
Bridging the Cultural Divide
Upon entering the second floor of City Hall the evening of February 25, I noticed several media crews and a number of people on cell phones loitering around outside the Lovejoy Room, where the first open house/workshop for the Citywide Public Involvement Standards Task Force was scheduled to occur.
It only took a moment to realize that the public schools negotiations were likely taking place there instead, but at first I couldn't find any indication that the public involvement meeting had been relocated. I remember thinking how ironic it would be if a meeting about public involvement standards had been cancelled and the public not notified.
As it turned out, the meeting had been moved across the hall to the Council Chambers, perhaps a more symbolically appropriate location anyway. What follows is a mainly a rundown of my notes from this session.
One participant asked early on if the current guiding principles for public involvement were themselves developed through a process of public involvement. Apparently, they were worked out by a combination of neighborhood coalition chairs and city staffers.
The goal of the task force, it was said, was to have present its results as an ordinance to be passed by City Council.
Suggestions and comments were fast and furious during the "large-group discussion" and are presented at the conclusion of this item. They may or may not represent my own opinions.
In the main, the undercurrent of all the comments and suggestion made was that there is a cultural divide between how the City views public involvement and how the public itself views public involvement.
This is reflected, for example, in an exchange I once had with a representative of the Bureau of Water Works, in which he explained that the Council viewed the decision to bury the Mt. Tabor reservoirs as a merely "technical" one -- when in fact, and as clearly demonstraed by the fierce opposition to that decision, that choice has such dramatic repercussions and has stirred such passions that it could not possibly be considered, in retrospect, merely technical. And yet the Council persists in viewing it that way, public opinion be damned.
It's also nicely described by something that architect Sarah Graham (one of the finalists for the OHSU tram design) said in her recent talk at OMSI, when asked about the differences between public involvement in Europe and public involvement in the United States. In Europe, she explained, elected officials presume that the citizenry is educated, will read, and will think. But in the United States, the presume the opposite.
And there you have the cultural divide when it comes to the public involvement process here in Portland. Whether or not the city intends to treat Portland residents in this dismissive and patronizing manner, Portland residents increasingly feel dismissed and patronized.
Presented below are the views of workshop participants during the "large-group discussion." They nicely illustrate the frustration over being treated as children, rather than as adept and capable citizens.
Also, feel free to download the questionaire (pdf) they provided and offer your own feedback and comments about Portland's public involvement process. Just mail the completed form to: Brian Hoop, Office of Neighborhood Involvement, 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 110, Portland OR 97204.
Citizen involvement groups give input, but the city ignores it if its not what they want to hear. Neighborhood involvement groups must be neighborhood residents and not city employees, and must be given the authority to make binding decisions.
Communities need to be involved in the earliest stages of any process. Perhaps they should even be more of the spark for any such process, with potential projects coming out of the communities themselves, rather than always just proposed from top-down.
There should be a process which actively seeks out community members through early outreach. Community involvement shouldn't feature the same names over and over again. Those involved should reflect the constituencies who will be impacted by whatever project or proposal is being discussed.
There should be training for community involvement people on how to look out for their neighborhood's best interests, so they know what to watch for when participating in public involvement processes.
Make use of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement mandatory unless the Council specifically gives authority to do otherwise. All Capital Improvement Projects should have citizen involvement from the earliest possible moment.
Everyone needs to respect that citizen involvement is a time-consuming and messy endeavor. The city must commit to doing it properly and invest the necessary time and energy.
Citywide projects must balance neighborhood issues and citywide issues.
Great city candor is required.
There should be more evening Council sessions on issues that are either controversial or have at least generated intense public interest. A methodology should be generated for outreach to community members.
Two-way accountability. Public involvement should have funding. The process should be transparent, with active feedback loops in all directions.
There should be citizen involvement on the Portland Development Commission (and bodies such as PATI, which is handling the tram project) so the community is involved in that actual decision, rather than being relegated to a merely reactive role after decisions have been made.
The process must utilize a more open and non-artificial timeframe for citizen involvement, so that a true public discussion can occur and opinion can be voiced and developed naturally, rather than confined within a certain period of time or certain parameters. "Minority reports" should be encouraged so dissenters' opinions are part of the official record.
There should be specific recognition by the city that communities of color and immigrant communities might have culturally-specific techniques for or approaches to involvement and outreach.
Use should be made of existing information distribution systems -- such as, say, water bills -- to communicate with residents. Involvement should be broadened beyonf the "chosen few" or the "elite."
There should be ongoing community/bureau conversations, involvement, and oversight -- not merely public input when a specific project or proposal comes around. The format for public involvement needs improvement, beyond the "testimony" style, which often seems to impact the City Council mainly as an opportunity for the community to "bitch" which the Council then considers a fulfillment of the public involvement process. The 2-3 minute presentation approach is too constrictive.
There must be some sort of predictability to the public involvement process. Not in terms of outcomes, but in terms of what to expect from the process itself, so all parties concerned understand what's required or expected of all sides involved.
There needs to be a consensus on what value the city as a whole places on the public involvement process.