[bouldercouncilhotline] FW: Public Participation Working Group

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Carol Sin
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From: Appelbaum, Matt
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2017 3:15 PM
To: HOTLINE <HOTLINE at bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: Public Participation Working Group

Colleagues - Hi.  Sorry for the late note, but as I was gathering my thoughts for tonight's study session, I discovered that I had rather more of them that I would want to take the time to offer at the meeting...or that you would want me to.  There are of course quite a few good ideas and concepts to take from the PPWG, and the next council(s) will need to sort through them, but here are some of my thoughts (in no particular order, and composed rather quickly):


  *   I'd put more emphasis on our Boards and Commissions.  While they are almost entirely advisory - and thus the public sometimes/often? ignores them and waits for the council discussion - our boards already do much of the key vetting and public process on a wide variety of issues.  I think this could be improved with better training of board members (regarding public process and, importantly, reminding them that they now represent the entire community), more community outreach from the boards, more/better outreach to potential board members with an eye toward diversifying the boards, and - as you knew I would suggest - finally giving real consideration to increasing the board members to seven on most if not all boards.
  *   The PPWG's report focuses on city council and staff and city processes, but considerable focus should also be placed on the public.  Boulder is clearly not immune from the nastiness and arrogance we see at the national level, and we need our public to better understand how to engage respectfully, collaboratively, and positively.  It's all too easy to say that inappropriate behaviors are caused by city/council actions; in fact, everyone needs to work on their attitudes and approach.
  *   In addition, while we of course need to make it easier for the public to get engaged, it takes some hard work to be a knowledgeable community member, and to start to understand the context in which some of our rather complicated decisions are made.  It's certainly fine for folks to simply say they support or oppose something, but the various questionable claims and statements of "fact" don't help, and in fact almost certainly lead to more dissatisfaction.  Yes, there is some burden on the city to help out here, but there is an equal burden on the public, and that has been largely ignored in the report.
  *   So, there is no question that the city web site could be much improved, and access to information made quite a bit easier.  Still, for complex projects there simply is a lot of material - particularly when the broader context is considered - and over-simplifying is not a good approach.  I don't really know how to get the broader context put into more accessible materials (no, reading the BVCP won't help...), but that's something to work on.
  *   Perhaps there could be a set of intros/tutorials to various topics.  Many, many years ago that was done for the budget, with a set of meetings that garnered reasonable public interest and a set of newspaper articles.  Of course, the budget process is rather more contained and less political than many of our more controversial topics (like anything related to growth or housing, where creating a "neutral" presentation is all but impossible), but this is worth the effort.  In fact, I think we already have one very good example: the study session a few months ago on affordable housing that, I think, was very well received by council and seemed to answer many questions and clarify quite a few misunderstandings.
  *   The examples at the end of the PPWG report really troubled me.  I thought that most of these issues had rather good processes, and I also think that many/most of the people involved felt that way.  (Folsom is of course a special case, but as I keep noting, I think that the council has learned quite the wrong lessons from it...a topic for another day.)  So what we have - I think - is the usual problem of having some people - typically those with the most passionate feelings that were not about to change no matter what - claim that the process was flawed because they didn't like the outcome.  If we don't move past this - and, again, I don't think these examples help us do so - then any process improvements are doomed to failure.  Council deals with very complex issues that - I think - rarely have a "wrong" or "right" outcome.  And many of them don't have good "compromise" outcomes either - something is done or it isn't, and splitting the difference often makes the result unworkable.  Thus, so long as anyone who doesn't like the outcome can say that they "weren't heard" and that the process was flawed - and have councilmembers agree with them - well, you all know this just won't work.
  *   One concern I fully agree with is that people often don't get enough information about why council chose the outcome(s) it did.  Now, some of this is certainly caused by people hearing what they want to hear or not understanding the context/regulations.  But I think it also is, at least partly, a reflection of how little time we give ourselves to explain our decisions.  I know this is a somewhat controversial idea - several of the councils I've served on really wanted no explanations of votes at all in the name of "efficiency"!  And explaining one's rationale on very complex, multi-part issues isn't at all easy in real-time.  Further, since councilmembers often disagree on how they got to their decisions - even if they can vote similarly - it is generally not possible to fashion a single explanation after the fact.  All that said, I continue to believe that it remains extremely important for council to explain their votes as best as possible, even if that isn't very "efficient."
  *   Another item that I believe was raised in the report is understanding that most (and likely all) of the key issues in our small community affect everyone, and certainly the broad citywide goals, and so everyone should be encouraged to get involved.  However, in most cases, we simply don't do that.  Far too many issues are seen as (specific) "neighborhood" issues, and while of course an immediately adjoining neighborhood will be more involved (and they should be) in the public process, we need to ensure that others get an equal say, or at least have their ideas and concerns be valued equally.  So, as I noted regarding the hospital site, that is absolutely a citywide issue; neighbors must be heard and their concerns seriously considered, but they must not drive the process or the outcome.  I'd say - and I know that many won't agree - that the Chautauqua parking issue was terribly flawed since the working group was very largely composed of neighbors even though non-neighbors make up, oh, perhaps 99% of the users; thus the outcome was most definitely pre-determined.
  *   Finally - but importantly - one of the complaints I hear the most about our public processes is how long they take.  And the report's suggestions would certainly seem to have the potential to increase that timeframe significantly.  Sure, a problem statement is a good idea (although for many of our broader issues that statement would itself be rather broad, like affordable housing), but it does not require a public process to create it.  A set of potential approaches is also good - and something often provided - but is the process really assisted by having a long community conversation each time, particularly when long-standing citywide goals and financial/regulatory/legal considerations lead to a relatively small set of possibilities?  Regardless, lengthening the process time will only have the effect of further limiting the pool and diversity of interested citizens, thus undermining one of the key reasons for pursuing process changes.

My best to the next council(s) as they try to implement some of these ideas and others.  It will take some trial and error, a willingness to make mistakes, and hopefully a more truly collaborative approach.  Trying out some new ideas on a couple of projects/processes seems like a good way to start, although it might be helpful if there were (also) a smaller project/process in the mix.

--Matt
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