December 18, 2003
Recommendations Of Public Involvement Task Force Approach Final Form
In an abbreviated Wednesday evening session of two hours instead of the usual three, the members of the Public Involvement Task Force brought their months-long endeavor into its final stages.
It should be noted up front that the documents references here are, in some cases, preliminary drafts meant more as the basis of the Task Force's final deliberations than for general discussion (since they are not finalized). They do, however, provide the first real glimpse of what will become the ultimate product of the group's work.
During the Task Force's most recent phase, members divided into work groups to develop recommendations for each of the following six areas: Principles of Public Involvement; Process Design and Implementation; Accountability and Transparency; Diversity and Accessibility; Communication and Access to Information; and Education and Skills Training.
The draft report (pdf, 84kb) distributed this week to Task Force members and posted to the City's website assigns the recommendations of the five latter work groups into categories developed by the Principles of Public Involvement work group.
As such, it's instructive first to look at what the "Principles of Good Public Involvement" generated by that work group (and included in the draft report):
Governance as Partnership: City elected officials and staff must join with citizens to create a partnership in which the public has a real voice in setting the course of the community. Effective involvement of the public is essential to achieve and sustain this partnership. The following principles will help achieve this partnership (short list, refer to Appendix for a comprehensive reading of updated Principles)
1. Culture
a. Culture of listening, hearing, and acting on public input
b. Collaborative, consensus-seeking, community-based approach
c. Ongoing Communication and Dialogue
d. Transparency of Governance and Processes
2. Community
a. Inclusiveness
b. Diversity and Accessibility
c. The Neighborhood System
3. Process
a. Early Involvement
b. Effective and Flexible Process Design and Implementation
c. Capacity within City Government
d. Coordination and Consistency
4. Accountability & Evaluation
a. Accountability
b. Evaluation
Since the report itself details and categories over 80 recommendations, I'll not attempt to get into specifics here, especially since the draft report is available for download to those interested.
Most of Wednesday's meeting was spent reviewing and approving the form of the report, and spot-checking to ensure that the recommendations properly reflected those generated by the various work groups.
At meeting's end, members voted to determine which recommendations they considered to be top priorities -- not so much for the purposes of the report itself as for determining what was termed "headline" recommendations. In some sense, think of them as a common set of talking points meant to exemplify the work of the Task Force.
For brevity's sake, I'll just pass along those recommendations which received at least five votes, ranked by the number of votes received, for a total of nine "headline" recommendations:
Recommendation: Initiate popular education and training on how City processes work and advocacy skills for diverse constituencies (includes partnerships with culturally-specific organizations, neighborhood offices, other agencies per proposal in appendix.) [11 Votes]
Recommendation: Adequately fund and expand citizen education and training on City processes. [8 Votes]
Recommendation: Develop a Matrix to guide determination of types and timing of public involvement (model on Warringah matrix). [8 Votes]
Recommendation: Develop mechanism to provide early notification and public input into bureau CIP discussions and bureau budgets before proposed budgets are submitted. [8 Votes]
Recommendation: Establish a stable funding mechanism for citywide public involvement infrastructure. [7 Votes]
Recommendation: Include support for and compliance with PI principles and requirements as an element of annual reviews for bureau directors, project managers and staff. [7 Votes]
Recommendation: Expand language translation and interpretation accessibility of City information. [6 Votes]
Recommendation: Create position of Public Information specialist. [6 Votes]
Recommendation: Expand opportunities for engaging youth in City civic activities through community-based service learning. [5 Votes]
Again, it's important to recognize that the intent of this vote was not meant to pare down the report's 80+ recommendations, but to establish a preliminary sense of "headline" recommendations.
Those who read the full draft report might notice an absense of recommendations under a heading labelled The Neighborhood System. This is mainly due to continuing questions as to how the work of this Task Force does or does not relate to that of the Guidelines Review, Empowerment, and Assessment Task Force, which has been working on the required review of the guidelines under which the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, the City's neighborhood associations, and other related entites operate.
It is expected that representatives of both groups will meet in the near future to discuss their work and determine if and how their respective products should refer to one another.
Also absent from much of the draft report are designations of priority level, timeline, and lead for each of its recommendations (although some initial designations appear based upon the determinations of the various work groups). Members of the Task Force will be breaking into new subgroups next month to establish and finalize these designations.
If I can lapse into personal observation for a moment, I think that it might have seemed to some who have followed the work of the Task Force -- if not, indeed, to some of its actual members -- that this day might not ever come.
It was not oncommon, at various stages of the Task Force's work, for the group to apppear to be spinning its wheels -- lost to disputes over semantics, endless repetition of the same observations, and debates over process.
So it is no small sign of encouragement, and possibly at least a little relief, that indeed this initial draft form of the Task Force's end product now has materialized. This week's Task Force meeting means that the final phase has begun, and the City Council indeed will have something before it next year.
A draft timeline (pdf, 22kb) of next steps is available. Outreach to the public, conversations with the constituency groups convened earlier in the year, and a formal public hearing are expected early next year, with the finalized report to be submitted to City Council in April or May -- a timeframe which, intentional or not, could provide an opportunity for Mayoral and Council candidates to respond to the Task Force's recommendations.
Comments (1)
Don MacGillivray on 24 Dec 2003
This is only to let you know of another City process that you should be covering. It is through the Bur. of Housing and Community Dev. There are three new committees, the Blue Ribbon Committee on Housing Resources Development, the Citizens Commission on Homelessness, and The Portland/Multnoah County Plan to End Homelessness Coordinating Committee. The Mayor, Comm. Sten, and Exec. Linn are members of the first two. The third committee is a vehicle of the 2nd committee. They meet once a month and expect to be finished with their work in about 6 months. These committees and the plan is a requirement of the 8.2 million dollars BHDC received from the Feds. and private sources. This activity will cause some more consternation by many of the leaders of these activities especially given the ballot measure in Feb. and the elections in May. There is also a new report published in Nov. titled "A Summary Report on Homelessness". Much of the info is or will be on the BHDC website. Check out its strategic plan goals while there.