June 17, 2003
Neighborhood Businesses Share Neighborhood Association Concerns Over Real Impact Of Public Involvement
Continuing my coverage of the Citywide Public Involvement Standards Taskforce and its series of constituency discussions, I turn now to this past Thursday's session for the neighborhood business community (as differentiated, for example, from the level of the Portland Business Alliance, whose stance on public involvement in Portland I'd dearly love to know).
How the conversation got underway will appear to contradict the headline here, but bear with me.
Referencing a list of 42 themes which have been identified in public comments to date, one participant immediately took issue with two: "Increase neighborhood association role; crime prevention, land use, etc." and "Refer issues with strong opposition back to neighborhoods for a vote."
"The business community isn't considered," they charged. "The business community is only just [now] involved while the neighborhoods have been involved for some time."
It was pointed out that there is business representation on the Public Involvement Standards Taskforce itself, and these constituency discussions only just recently started.
Nonetheless, the criticism was pushed regardless: "As you have met with other smaller groups I would encourage you to meet with other business groups around the city. From today forward, the business community shold be engaged in these conversations on a wholesale scale."
Despite this rough start, once the group got down to the issues of public involvement, attitudes became far less oppositional.
As has often been the case, this group quickly zeroed in on what might be the single most common theme of these discussions: Lack of real involvement in the decision-making process itself.
"Many people are thinking that they don't have a voice even if they do come to meetings," one participant said. It needs to be made that "a meeting is going to have some kind of influence on a decision."
Another continued this line: "If the business groups, and the neighborhood groups, had the ability to change and influence decisions, they could at that point say, 'No, you're not going to do it.' It would only take one or two times like that before the bureaus made sure that every stakeholder was notified of what [was] coming down the track."
Not incidentally, this was the first time -- but not the last -- that a participant, when mentioning business groups, made certain to also mention neighborhood groups in the same breath.
"If the community had the right and the ability to say 'No' and stop a project in its tracks," another participant said, explaining what they feel is needed. "For this to have any kind of strength as an engagement process, the community -- both neighborhood and business -- needs to have the ability to influence decisions."
This idea was promptly given a name, which would no doubt send shivers down the spines of many of the City staffers who participated in their own constituency discussion: The 'veto vote.'
In terms of properly communicating with impacted communities, it was suggested that guidelines be created that deal with both timing and geography, and that advance notification target not just property owners, but business owners and residents.
Referencing the third item on the list of themes thus far determined by public comments -- "Improve transparency, access to information, how decisions made" -- one participant insisted that this really had to be broken down into how much time is needed to get the information out, where it's going to be distributed, and through what media.
This participant asked, "What is adequate timing in developing a project?" Further, they wanted to know how this would be determined, and by who.
"When we don't have enough of a budget to mitigate interference from public works," another participant said, "we're not doing our job in terms of government." They continued: "The City has the capacity to mitigate a lot of those fears and bring people to the table early on if they so choose. What's more, they argued, major projects are often known two to three years ahead of time, which should provide plenty of time to budget for, and implement, proper public involvement processes.
"We have business assocations and neighborhood associations," someone said, and they receive information, "but they could use funding or assistance in disseminating that information."
Another participant said simply: "Notification, a call for more information, and then follow-up afterwards."
In terms of finding approproate media for getting the word out, it was suggested that major newspapers such as The Oregonian might not be appropriate for certain communities. LOcal community papers, door-to-door delivery of flyers, and email were suggested as some alternatives.
Yet another participant went the simple and direct route: "If wouldn't hurt bureaus to notify right when they know there's a project."
(Incidentally, although this did not come up during this discussion, the current draft of proposed change to City Code Chapter 3.96 would require that bureaus notify potentially-impacted communities of forthcoming projects as soon as they assign staff to them.)
Another participant hoend in on matters of "authority and flexibility" when it comes to interacts between communities and City staff: "You go into the meetings and the staff person who is there is someone who is completely adequate ... but they have no ability to make decisions of changes. That staff person needs to have some ability to make decisions on the spot about what may be good or bad or indifferent."
The overall furstration shared by many of the constituency discussions was nicely summed up by another participant: "If this process is real, and isn't just a smokescreen, there's some real changes [that] have to be made. The attitude is 'What difference does it make to go to meetings' because the decisions have already been made and they aren't going to listen to you anyway. [There] should be a way for the other stakeholders, businesses or neighborhoods, to have input."
Returning to the realm of the direct and simple, someone suggested that the general feeling is one of "uselessness, resignation, and despair."
Someone suggested that in terms of land use projects, "more creative use of on-site notification" is needed, offering that perhaps some sort of readily-seen and recognized logo that indicates important development changes are forthcoming, and the signs should be posted along the entire block, rather than only at the site itself.
Even in a situation where there may be a "prudent and responsible explanation" behind a given decision or project, it was mentioned, you have to actually let people know. "Otherwise, everyone just thinks the City is incompetent."
"You can't have influence," another participant warned, "unless you can make an ultimate decision to say 'No.' If this is just an attempt to gloss over what's going on, a smokescreen to make people feel warm and fuzzy, but we're not really going to give people more authority" then it's all just going to be a matter of sending out lots of notices and little else.
As the discussion turned to City bureaus, one participant offered this: "If the bureaus lean one way and the community leans another way, [there needs to be a] mechanism to bring that before the City Council [for a] legitimate hearing."
Someone else suggsted the idea of including a "minority report" with anything that goes before Council. This idea has come up before, at least as early as the first public workshop the Taskforce held.
"Certain interests," another participant asserted, "will periodically, if not often, avoid the public participatio process, allow the bureaus to come to a decision and pass it along to Council, and then they will make their voice heard."
"Groups withhold their input intentionally?" they were asked.
"Because no one has the power except the Council, so why bring input before [the decision] is before the Council?"
After a brief discussion that, in essence, was a shared venting about perceived arrogance on the part of the City, for thinking it always knows best, and what possible contribution or better idea could the public have, the group returned for a moment to the idea of a veto power.
One task, it was suggested, might be to create "guidelines for participation in a community-wide veto."
"We are talking about access to power," this participant continued. If people don't come to meetings because they think there's no point, "a veto would by the power to stop that from happening. If we had a veto, a lot of these other things would happen because agencies would not want to confront a veto."
Interestingly, one participant raised the history of the community victory over the plans for the Mt. Hood Freeway, which would have razed neighborhoods in the general area of SE Division and Clinton Streets. In fact, according to this person, that victory -- in essence a community veto -- was the birth of the City's ongoing official experiment with neighborhood involvement.
Another participant came back around to the Taskforce's goal of creating actual standards: "Develop a process that would be a minimum standard, and a process that works so the bureaus are accountable for their actions. A level playing field with a minimum standard, and those rules are published, and they work.
Someone else suggested that other bureaus replicate the concept of the classes on transportation issues out of the Office of Transportation. Readers here might recall that Congressman Earl Blumenauer also mentioned these classes in his recent speech during a workshop session at the Americans for the Arts convention in downtown Portland.
Simplicity was also mentioned. "When a project is brought to a community, it should be in a 'white paper' summary form that the communtiy can understand, and not in 'bureaucratese.'"
Before turning to an attempt to find the group's top priorities, another participant tried to outline a potential process to utilize before a community would have the option of exercising any veto power, under which the Council would receive the technical reports from City staff in conjunction with a community report, which would be funded by the project in question itself.
Wrapping up, the group tried to find the general themes of their discussion. It was suggested that almost every one of their major points in some way would require budgeting. "How much do we have to spend on these sorts of things?"
Some major categories were identified: Clarity; standardization; authority ("What good does it do without veto power?"); efficiency; and engagement ("Seriously bringing to the table").
Acknowledgment of input was also singled out, regardless of the ultimate outcome, regardless of whether one's side manages to win out. "I would like to know that someone heard me, and can give a reason why the decision went the other way."
There was general agreement that an actual minimum standard for public involvement is an absolute necessity: "If there isn't a minimum standard for this ... it's probably going to be the first thing cut out of the budget."
An "attitude of value" was also sought: "Valuing what they can learn from the business owner and the neighbor." More realistically, it was suggested, there should be wording in the standards to this effect, and perhaps the actual attitude would come later.
Much of these key points -- many of which are clearly echoed in the other constituency discussions I've covered here -- were summed up by one participant thusly: "The value of using local knowledge."