Consensus convenes statewide Missouri River basin engagement

By Jennifer Wilding, director of Consensus

Farmers, historians, businesspeople, environmentalists, people who make their living taking sand or water from the river, and those whose livelihood depends on recreation all gathered Oct. 2 at a hotel meeting room in Jefferson City. Their job? To discuss how best to restore the Missouri River basin ecosystem. Consensus was selected by the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution to convene the Missouri meeting, one of eight held in states in the river basin.

Congress has required that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service restore the ecosystem in order to lessen the loss of habitat and recover native fish and wildlife. (Of 67 native fish species, 51 are now rare, uncommon or decreasing.) The plan requires that the restoration also consider social, economic and cultural values for future generations.

At 30 participants, the Consensus meeting was the second largest of the eight meetings. Each state needed to get answers to the same questions, but each convener had free rein over the meeting design.

Group members began by interviewing one another about values related to the river. Many people who live and work near the Missouri River value its history and culture, ecology and recreational opportunities. But more than anything else, they see it as a source of business. People live near the river because they can farm, transport goods and make a living on tourism. They view it as an asset as well as an unpredictable interference in their lives. The most often mentioned value was balance: the need to balance the natural state of the river against the economic livelihood of farmers, the navigation industry and others.

In general, Missouri participants saw possibilities for the river to add to quality of life and tourism, but those possibilities are not nearly fully realized, with towns often cut off from the river by train tracks and the perception that the river is dirty and dangerous. They also underscored the importance of the river for navigation, particularly navigation in support of farms in the basin, and said that fluctuations in water levels can make navigation difficult.

The group identified opportunities related to the restoration, including joining together to clean up the river, increasing docks and marinas, connecting the river to tourism in river towns and along the Katy Trail, reinventing barges to tailor them to the Missouri (rather than the Mississippi), and “reinventing American” by strengthening small towns.

Consensus puts the public in public policy for clients in metro Kansas City and around the U.S. For more information, visit www.consensuskc.org.

Why you should care about disaster preparedness

By Stephanie Williams, MARC Public Affairs Specialist

On Feb. 28, 2001, I was sitting in an archaeology lecture on the third floor of Gowen Hall, an old, red-brick building on the University of Washington campus in Seattle. The room had an enormously high ceiling with lights like upside-down salad bowls suspended on the ends of long rods. There were perhaps 150 students sitting in the long rows of continuous, curving desks in the drab, theater-style room.

The ground started shaking around 11 a.m. It was gentle at first. Students around the room perked up, wide-eyed, assessing the severity of the situation. Then it got worse. The hanging lights began to swing back and forth several feet in each direction. The building swayed. Small pieces of ceiling tile rained down. We dived for cover underneath desks barely wide enough to cover us.

After 45 seconds, it was over. The Nisqually quake had a magnitude of 6.8, injured about 400 people, and caused damage to property and infrastructure across Western Washington. But it could have been so much worse.

This is why we need to care about the actions our governments are taking to protect people and structures from the consequences of natural disasters. That day in 2001 made me thankful for the codes that ensured most buildings were able to withstand the force of the quake. I’m glad that as a kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I had been taught what to do during an earthquake. These things made it possible for me to be here today.

Earthquakes may not be common in the Kansas City region, but floods, tornadoes and severe winter weather are. If you’ve taken shelter in a basement because of a tornado warning, or lost power because of a winter storm, you’ve been affected by a natural disaster.

Fortunately, the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires state and local governments to develop plans to help lessen the impact of potential natural hazards, and right now in Greater Kansas City, those plans are being updated. November is your chance to give feedback on the steps your community is taking to prepare; don’t wait until you’re caught in the middle of a natural disaster to care. Share your own disaster story or learn more about giving feedback on local plans.

Learning from social research practices

By Stephanie Williams, MARC Public Affairs Specialist

What is the relationship between social research and public involvement? And are the two fields mutually exclusive? Not exactly.

For decades, social researchers have made careers and answered questions using quantitative and qualitative research methods. The designs are ideally carefully constructed to ensure that the results are representative of the population being studied and can be generalized to other areas or different circumstances.

Public involvement has long sought to link citizens to decision-making processes on a wide range of topics. Public involvement is many things — an exercise in community cohesiveness, an agent of cultural change, a way to break down barriers among stakeholders — but in and of itself, it is not social research.

But public involvement practitioners may benefit from looking at their methods through the lens of a social researcher. What population am I studying? How can I ensure the voices that need to be heard on this issue are included in the process? Can I make the assumption that people who are similar to my participants feel the same way about the topic we discussed? If the process intends to get a glimpse of a broader community’s feelings on an issue, calculated steps should be taken before the process begins to answer these questions.

By increasing their familiarity with social research practices, public involvement practitioners can broaden their scope of potential approaches to process development. The process itself will ultimately be cleaner and better planned. After all, sometimes when we need to do social research, we instead do public involvement, either because of limiting factors such as time or money, or because it’s what the client expects. As practitioners, we need to be clear enough on the relationship between these two fields to know what the project demands.

Equity and sustainability in Greater Kansas City

By Daniel Cash, One KC Voice Program Coordinator

Sustainability is a word that is used today most often to refer to stewardship of the physical environment in order to preserve quality of life for future generations.

I spent nearly 20 years working with indigenous and often marginalized people in developing countries. Our use of the word recognized wise use of limited resources, but more importantly, sustainability dealt with the difference between involving people in community decisions versus treating the symptoms of disenfranchisement. Sustainable development is about creating equitable structures that enable the poor, voiceless and marginalized to not only participate in transformative change, but to be true partners in every aspect of the process. Sustainability is about creating interdependent relationships on equitable community-based structures instead of dependence on inequitable structures.

Through the recent Imagine KC project, citizens told us that creating vibrant, walkable, mixed-use villages connected by multiple transportation options was highly desirable. They also told us that some social and economic equity issues need to be addressed; that redevelopment of the urban core should not create gentrification that pushes disenfranchised groups to new areas of marginalization. Reinvestment in the inner city requires increased integration and improved opportunities for all citizens.

The news lately has been full of radical responses to inequity, discrimination and ethnic tension. We read news reports about violent hate crimes, such as the shooting at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. A recent Supreme Court ruling calls into question the role of race in employment policy and practice. Locally, there have been accusations of discrimination related to the dress code at the Kansas City Power & Light District.

What are some of the equity issues that need to be a part of the Kansas City region’s sustainable development over the next 30 years? Should we begin frank, open discourse about equity in public education, race relations, health and health care, affordable housing and workforce development? How do we begin? Who needs to start the conversation?

The state of the region

By Daniel Cash, One KC Voice Program Coordinator

What is the role of the citizen, in citizen engagement?

We recently completed two major projects that have the potential to have a great impact on quality of life in the Kansas City region over the next 20–30 years. The first, Imagine KC, asked citizens to imagine a sustainable Kansas City — where growth and infrastructure are managed, and personal and corporate behaviors adapt to create an environmentally balanced region. The second, Transportation Outlook 2040, looked at regional policies that will guide future transportation investments.

They were huge successes, with participation from large numbers of citizens in open and candid discussion about difficult issues. In the case of Imagine KC, the conversation reached into about 73,000 households through a live telecast on KCPT public television. Transportation Outlook 2040 engaged citizens across demographic categories and in every county in the region.

Although we had record numbers of participants in these projects, we know some either chose not to participate or didn’t hear about the opportunity to contribute their voices. How do we engage them? Are the voices of some segments of our population simply not heard? What role does individual choice play in engagement?

I recommend you take a few minutes out of your busy day and view the “Song of a Citizen” series of op-eds. Song of a Citizen’s producer, Jeffrey Abelson, has recorded eight great thinkers (so far) who share their thoughts about democracy, or in his words, “re-linking the self to self-government.”

I especially suggest you watch Michael X. Delli Carpini’s (dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at UPenn) piece entitled “Constant Vigilance” and Rick Shenkman’s (historian, NY Times best-selling author, and founder of the History News Network) video entitled “Are citizens up to the job?”

What are your thoughts on these videos? What is the state of citizen engagement in the Kansas City region?

Your ideas for an open government

By Daniel Cash, One KC Voice Program Coordinator

Are you participating in the Open Government Dialogue? If you’re not, you should be. Go to Open Government Dialogue, where you can see more than 2,500 ideas for making our government more open and transparent submitted by individuals and organizations. You can also vote on the ideas you like or don’t like. This White House-sponsored initiative is taking your ideas and comments through June 19. A discussion phase based on the ideas and comments received began today. I encourage you to participate in this project and pass the link on to your colleagues and friends.

But here’s the real story: I applaud this effort. I do. Reaching out to the public to solicit ideas isn’t common practice for our elected officials. But let’s get real: Do I, as an average citizen, have time to read more than 2,500 ideas? No, but at least I’ve given it a reasonable effort. I wonder what the response would have been if this initiative was truly promoted? Oh, the power of the White House.

So, in the end, these are the (mostly realistic) things that I hope this effort will help accomplish:

• I hope the ideas will be read and analyzed by decision makers in the White House.
• I hope that the ideas coming from special interest groups (or leaders in the field of public engagement) will not be the only ones given full consideration.
• I hope that during the discussion phase, everyone who wants to participate gets a chance to do so.
• I hope that people’s thoughts will be listened to, and that changes to open government policy are instituted soon.
• I hope that this is more than public relations or good politics.
• I hope there are plans to keep the conversation going, and to “take it to the streets,” rather than focusing on people in the field of public engagement.
• I hope this is not just a fad, but a true turning point in how our government and the people it serves interact.

Editor’s note: The Open Government Dialogue site has recently received an influx of spam messages. You may have to dig a little to get to the meat.

If this post uses the word environment, you probably will not read it unless you are an environmentalist

By Jennifer Wilding, Kansas City Consensus

Over the years, I have facilitated many discussions, some of which have dealt with the environment. I want to start a conversation about something I have noticed: People who show up to discuss environmental topics are experts. It is extremely rare for someone not involved in environmental issues to attend a public forum on an environmental topic.

There are three things I want to ask readers of this blog:

1. Does it matter? What do we gain or lose when public meetings on environmental topics are held mainly among people who are already familiar with each other and with the subject?
2. Why is it so rare to draw the average recycler to public meetings? Conversely, why is it so typical to attract people who have written dissertations on peak oil, reduced their carbon footprint to a size four, and powered their pick-ups with Winstead’s cherry limeades?
3. What can be done to encourage the environmentally average to show up to a public meeting that deals with environmental issues?

I will offer some possible answers to Number 2, which are just waiting to be improved upon. In general, it’s the people who want change who show up to public meetings. People who are happy with the status quo aren’t motivated to attend. The environmental movement has legions of committed activists. Although people care about other issues, like health care or education, there are far fewer folks who devote significant amounts of time and energy doing something about them. People who aren’t deeply committed environmentalists are intimidated by those who are, and they stay away. Or they see the subject as overly technical and don’t feel they know enough to participate.

The few times I have experienced an environmental conversation with regular folks stand out:

• A One KC Voice meeting on waste and recycling was scheduled with an existing group of businesspeople. The conversation included a wider range of perspectives than usual.
• A day-long Consensus event on transportation included citizens selected at random, and we engaged those who are rarely heard.
• A public forum happened to draw environmentalists at different spots on the continuum, from a committed recycler to someone who was voluntarily homeless to reduce his carbon footprint. The group had a great talk about how “environmental” was “environmental enough.”

The conversation is different when it’s held with experts, most of whom agree with each other. It’s not fair to blame the people who cared enough to show up, but it seems as if it’s possible to draw a broader audience. What do you think?

White House creates Office of Public Engagement

From the new Office of Public Engagement Web page:

ABOUT THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The Office of Public Engagement is the open front door to the White House.

The Office of Public Engagement is the embodiment of the President’s goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable and responsible.

We create and coordinate opportunities for direct dialogue between the Obama Administration and the American public, while bringing new voices to the table and ensuring that everyone can participate and inform the work of the President.

The Office of Public Engagement helps open the two-way dialogue, ensuring that the issues impacting our nation’s proud and diverse communities have a receptive team dedicated to making their voices heard within the Administration, and even more importantly helping their concerns be translated into action by the appropriate bodies of the Federal Government.

As part of making the Government accessible to its citizens, the Office of Public Engagement acts as a point of coordination for public speaking engagement for the Administration and the various departments of the Executive Offices of the President. The Office of Public Engagement removes obstacles and barriers for engagement and works to improve public awareness and involvement in the work of the Administration.

Together, side by side with the citizens who have demanded a government they can be a part of, a government that works, The Office of Public Engagement will build the open and transparent government President Barack Obama has promised.

The real question is, does this name change reflect real policy change, or is it merely a window dressing on “business as usual”? At this point, we can’t be sure. President Obama has already made attempts to engage citizens in dialogue, most notably in the area of health care reform. But although his efforts have been far greater than those of any of his predecessors, his efforts still lack true intensity. With President Obama’s personal background as a community organizer, we’re hopeful that this move means more opportunities for citizens to engage in meaningful dialogue, leading to more effective policies and programs.

In the coming weeks, please take time to log on to the Office of Public Engagement Web site and send an invitation to President Obama. Tell him that it’s necessary to reach out to citizens at the local level, and invite him to hold an engagement in the Kansas City region. We, as Americans, need to recognize that a door has been cracked open; it’s our job to rush through before traditional politics and administrative inertia closes it.

*URGENT*: Greater KC transit funding (ACT NOW)

The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA), a major public transit provider in the Kansas City region, will be forced to make drastic service reductions by next month if citizens don’t act right now.

According to an e-mail from KCATA:

Kansas City’s bus system needs your help TODAY! In an unexpected move last night, lawmakers passed a stimulus bill that provided $12 million for St. Louis’ transit system and ZERO dollars for Kansas City.

While we support the funding for St. Louis, Kansas City should not be left behind. Particularly, when our community has voted repeatedly to support public transit. Without this one-time funding, critical service cuts will go into effect in June.

There is still a chance to get money for Kansas City. The Senate Appropriations Committee meets at 1 p.m. today.

We need your help to convince legislators to also provide funding for the Kansas City bus system.

Please use the contact information provided below to e-mail or call the key legislators considering this issue by 1 p.m. Please give them a simple, personal message based on the following important points:

• Tell them why public transit is important to you
• Tell them it’s an outrage that Kansas City isn’t getting any money, and
• Ask them to include funding for the KCATA

Contact these legislators to express your support of increasing transit funding for Greater KC:

President Pro Tem
Senator Charlie Shields
(573) 751-9476
charlie_shields@senate.mo.gov

Majority Floor Leader
Senator Kevin Engler
(573) 751-3455
Kevin.engler@senate.mo.gov

Majority Caucus Whip
Senator Tom Dempsey
(573) 751-1141
tom.dempsey@senate.mo.gov

Minority Caucus Secretary
Senator Yvonne Wilson
(573) 751-9758
Yvonne.Wilson@senate.mo.gov

Senator Gary Nodler, Chair
(573) 751-2306
Gary.Nodler@senate.mo.gov

Senator Rob Mayer, Vice-Chair
(573) 751-3859
Rob.Mayer@senate.mo.gov

Editor’s note: Notifications of citizen action opportunities do not constitute endorsement of those actions. One KC Voice is dedicated to providing opportunities for citizens to become involved in local decision making, but does not take a position on the issues being discussed.

Local projects supporting sustainability

By Daniel Cash, One KC Voice citizen engagement coordinator

A synergy that can help our region move toward sustainability is building among people, initiatives and organizations in Greater Kansas City. Two of these are Bridging The Gap’s EarthWalk/EarthFest and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II’s proposed Green Impact Zone of Missouri.

Showing support for sustainability: EarthWalk and EarthFest

Bridging The Gap is sponsoring its 13th Annual EarthWalk and EarthFest on May 9 at Theis Park, south of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. EarthWalk, which begins at 10 a.m., is a 2.5-mile walk that benefits the ongoing environmental education and advocacy work of Bridging The Gap. You can register online through May 1.

At 11 a.m., EarthFest begins. Five villages will showcase how you can make small changes in your home and life to be more eco-friendly. There will be live performances and activities, including an Imagine KC conversation.

Forging community partnerships to assist the urban core: Green Impact Zone of Missouri

A high percentage of neighborhoods in the 64110 and 64130 zip codes are affected by poverty, violence and foreclosure. The “Green Impact Zone of Missouri” plan aims to make these homes more energy efficient and reduce utility costs for residents. You can find out more about the Green Impact Zone on Congressman Cleaver’s blog.

I was privileged to take a trip to Greensburg, Kan., led by Congressman Cleaver, with community leaders from the Green Impact Zone and other stakeholders. Our purpose was to learn how the people of Greensburg chose to pursue a green strategy to rebuild their community after it was virtually destroyed by an F5 tornado on May 4, 2007. We wanted to find strategies from the Greensburg experience that could be drawn upon to help reinvestment in the Green Impact Zone.

What became obvious to some of us during this visit was Greensburg’s early recognition of the need to involve all its citizens in the conversation about how it should rebuild. There was a concerted effort to involve everyone, including youth, in the conversations, planning processes and rebuilding efforts.

Similarly, we must strive here in Kansas City to involve the people who live and work in the Green Impact Zone in conversations about this reinvestment initiative.