Best Practices, Introduction

[Jim.Marxen, Panelist <jmarxen@dtsc.ca.gov>]

The best project outcomes are almost always the result of early and meaningful public involvement. Conversely, the worst outcomes are also almost always the result of poor outreach.  No one has perfected public involvement, but we keep trying to find better ways of doing it. 

I may be stating the obvious, but if we ever regain or rebuild public trust in our decisions, it will be because we in government  open the doors to our process and allow  scrutiny and involvement from the public. So what are states, tribes and local governments doing to bring communities into our decision-making?  I hope we'll hear many good stories and suggestions(and maybe even not-so-good ones that we can learn from) today.

In California, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC, my agency) decided nearly 20 years ago that it needed a dedicated staff of specialists to perform public outreach.  Today we have 32 staff members around the state who work to bring affected communities into the process.  They come from a variety of backgrounds but have in common the ability to communicate well with a wide spectrum of community members.

One specific method that has proven valuable is the community assessment.  For most of our projects, we send out survey letters to get a general idea of community interest  (for more information on our survey form and other assessment tools, take a look at our web site - www.dtsc.ca.gov )   Not everyone returns these forms, but if you provide a variety of "return" methods (i.e. e-mail, telephone or letter), you can increase your return rate.

Assessment must be done early in the process, but public participation is of minimal value if it's not meaningful.  Communities use the term "window dressing" to sometimes describe public involvement activities, and unless agency representatives at the very top (and all the way down) buy into the concept that public dialogue leads to better decisions, window dressing is all we become.

So, today let's hear some success stories and take a look at ways we could have done better when we didn't succeed.  FYI, we're in the process of updating DTSC's public participation policy and your ideas will be appreciated at both the federal and California level.

For the sake of starting discussion (which I guess is my job today), let me throw out a couple of questions:

What do you do to assess a community?

How do you define power-sharing?