July 26, 2006 DRAFT Meeting Notes for BIP #9: Public Involvement
1. Greetings/Review of the Agenda/Handouts
Members Present: Eileen Argentina, Jo Ann Bowman , Laurel Butman, Megan Callahan, Christine Egan, Gay Greger, Tim Hall, Barbara Hart, Brian Hoop, Beth Kaye, Elizabeth Kennedy-Wong, Sandra LeFrancois, Cameron Vaughan-Tyler, Karen Withrow.
Not Present: Art Alexander, Sue Diciple, Brian Hockaday, Marsha Palmer, Rick Williams.
Staff: Maija Spencer.
Guests: Michelle Walch (Intern, OMF), Jonah Willbach (Intern, Water), John Ryan (public).
2. Public Comments: There were no public comments.
3. Notes from June 28th:
It was motioned by Laurel and seconded by Barbara to approve the notes. Notes were approved unanimously, with one abstention.
4. Implementation Team Meeting:
Jo Ann & Eileen have also met with Commissioners Leonard, Saltzman, and Adams and will soon meet with Bureau Directors from Planning, Police, Environmental Services, Water, and Parks.
5. Review of Public Impact Spectrum:
Still Needed:
- What comes before the tools?
- Series of questions/situational analysis – PDC and Water both have documents with a series of questions they answer with project managers.
- Statement about how to use our product is to be used.
Edits to Make to Tools:
- Flip arrow and chart to be vertical, rather than horizontal.
- Switch involvement and impact on the Spectrum and List of Questions.
- Change name of tools category “Committees/Advisory Groups” to just “Committees.”
Unresolved:
- To have numbers with questions – it was agreed that the pilot projects can try it with numbers and without, to see what works best.
Parking Lot Issues:
- Add “funding for public involvement” – especially for childcare, translation, etc.
Other comments:
- It was agreed that we do not have time to come up with a dollar amount or ratio for how much money should be spent on public involvement. However, the idea for creating a pricing sheet is a good one. This could be used by project managers and would have average prices for translation, staff time, locations, etc.
- It often takes a bureau getting burned before they are willing to spend money on public involvement. If done proactively, money spent on public involvement is also good PR and marketing. It can prevent future problems and bad reputations and better promote the services that the City provides.
- Public involvement is a cost of doing business, just like asphalt or anything else. It needs to be built into the work program. Bureaus have many different ways of budgeting for public involvement.
6. Final Steps:
Parking Lot Issues List:
- What about outcomes of public involvement? Maybe the SEA or another survey about public involvement. The Auditor’s office has expressed interest in including public involvement in the SEA – maybe this ties into the funding issue.
- It was discussed how to prioritize the list of parking lots issues. It was agreed that this list should be reviewed against the PI Task Force recommendations, to eliminate redundancies.
- The Implementation Team needs to understand this is part of a bigger conversation, and that there has to be a commitment to an ongoing conversation about public involvement.
- Perhaps an internal group of city staff can be convened to continue discussing these things.
- Some of these issues also may get solved by the other BIP’s, such as BIP #8 or visionPDX.
- It was suggested to include the PI Task Force recommendations as an appendix, so that they are seen as a separate body’s work.
- Some items, such as the principles, can’t be looked at until BIP #8’s major work is done. The public involvement principles really need a lot of public input before they can be adopted – it’s not a process that should be rushed.
In August:
- Review product again – deal with Question #11 (placeholder).
- DRAFT report will be sent out to team a week prior to the August meeting.
- Christine will help lead a walk-through of a sample project with the toolkit, to see how it would work in reality. We can also look at whether or not to use a numbering system – although, it has been suggested that the pilots can also test this. Christine shared how she has had a group answer the questions together, and then took the average answer for each question.
- The Steering Committee will discuss the situational analysis questions and look at PDC and Water’s versions.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 – 6:30-8:30 – Metro