May 13, 2003
June: Upcoming Neighborhood Discussions On Citywide Public Involvement Standards
While I will be sure to post a reminder when these dates approach, I want to give advance notice of a series of neighborhood discussions related to the Citywide Public Involvement Standards Task Force about which I've written previously. Below is the text of the announcement (with some formatting adjustments for ease of use) of these discussions, which yesterday came across the notification list of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement:
Neighborhood discussions on Citywide Public Involvement Standards
Got something to say about how City bureaus reach out to the public on major projects? Have some ideas on how to improve interactions between City bureaus and the public?
A taskforce of neighborhood and business leaders, City staff, community of color, immigrant, refugee leaders and others will be creating recommendations for consideration by City Council of citywide standards for public involvement processes.
These open meetings are an opportunity to sit down with other neighborhood association leaders and concerned individuals to identify and prioritize issues of importance so that neighborhood associations can collectively advocate for changes they would like to see take place.
Outer NE & SE Meeting
Monday, June 2
7 PM - 9 PM
East Portland Precinct, Community Room, 737 SE 106th
Hosted by: East Portland Neighborhood Office (Representative is Arlene Kimura: 503-823-4550) & Central NE Neighbors (Rep. is Phil Colombo: 503-823-3156
Inner SE Meeting
Tuesday, June 3
Hosted by: Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program (Representative is Carlotta Collette: 503-232-0010
West Meeting
Tuesday, June 3
7 PM - 9 PM
City Hall, Council Chambers, 2nd Floor, 1221 SW 4th Ave.
Hosted by: Neighbors West/Northwest (Representative is Frank Dixon: 503-223-3331) & Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. (Rep. is Corinne Weber: 503-823-4592)
North & Inner NE Meeting
Thursday, June 5
7 PM - 9 PM
Kenton Firehouse, 2209 N. Schofield
Hosted by: NE Coalition of Neighborhoods (Representative is Willie Brown: 503-823-4575) & North Portland Neighborhood Services (Rep. is Betsy Radigan: 503-823-4524
My suggestion of something to watch for: From the beginning of the Task Force, there has been much suggestion that public involvement standards should focus on a "customer service" model, but this suggestion has been challenged during recent Task Force meetings, according to meeting minutes.
More than anything else, I would like to throw my support behind the idea that this "customer service" focus be abandoned as the philosophical context for the debate. Customers, in a commercial sense, have a very limited role to play. Their choices are restricted to deciding what to buy in the marketplace; they are simply subjects of the commercial transaction.
Public involvement isn't about customers, but about citizens and residents of a given area. To some, this may seem a piddling issue of semantics, but in reality, choosing a guiding metaphor will substantively affect the nature of the conversation being had about public involvement.
My fear is that the "customer service" angle is likely being pushed by those who see every city process -- public involvement included -- as merely another avenue to define the discussion in business terms. But true public involvement is not merely about the ease or difficulty in, say, obtaining city permits or buidling variances. True public involvement is much, much broader than just those concerns.
So I'm glad to see that this "customer service" comparison is being challenged, and I encourage it to be done away with altogether. The idea of examining city activities based upon a customer service model is, frankly, already covered through processes such as the auditor and ombudsman reports. Public involvement is a much more complex and multi-directional process, and a "customer service" model is far too restrictive to enable adequate discussion.