GSA provides refresher for public engagement
The creation of the new Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) provides a fresh look at some of the democratic procedural and process ideals public agencies should embody. The Sonoma GSA will be responsible for creating a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) by 2022. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) website has lots of material on how the new agency and GSP should work and be undertaken. One of these materials is a stakeholder engagement white paper, http://www.cleanwateraction.org/files/publications/ca/SGMA_Stakeholder_Engagement_White_Paper.pdf that provides great advice for the new GSA.
These public engagement ideals are things existing municipalities, agencies, districts, philanthropic interests, and non-profits may well consider also, as a refresher course.
For local agencies, I am intending that these outreach and public engagement points apply to, among others: the school system, social service non-profits, to the Tourism Improvement District and Sonoma Valley Visitor’s Bureau, the City of Sonoma and its various public processes, the Regional Climate Protection Authority, and the new Sustainable Sonoma initiative by the Sonoma Ecology Center.
For the GSA, groundwater is the common issue and common pool resource (CPR) in question. For other local agencies, issues revolve around common economic, society and environment issues. In general, public involvement goals for outreach, engagement and participation apply in the same ways.
All citizens have a stake in common issues
One primary goal in SGMA is to “encourage the active involvement of diverse social, cultural and economic elements of the population.” This is to say, all citizens have a stake in common pool resources and common issues.
Groundwater as a metaphor for all public issues
Systemic issues concerning common pool resources, the economy, environment and society, are not confined by municipal or proprietary boundaries; their use and disposition affects all at regional, state, national and global levels. In the same ways as the GSA, existing public and private agencies conduct and manage activities that affect everyone and everything. Involving diverse interests, and being open and transparent is an important goal for all these policy processes.
A right to be involved
One of the take-home messages of this SGMA GSP white paper is that those affected by GSA decisions have a right to be involved in the decision-making process, and that processes are more solid when the public is properly engaged. The premise: the better the outreach, the better the sense of co-operation. A public engagement system that leads to controversy, adversarial relations, appeals, lawsuits, and the need for external enforcement, is likely one that has not used good communications outreach, nor one that has good public relations in mind. Negative outcomes cost more in the end anyway. Negative outcomes, to a real extent, are the result of poor ability by policy actors, to engage the public, and to frame issues so that different parties can commonly understand and shape them.
Facts, data, and zero sum game habits
How can diverse interests understand the same set of facts in the same way? Is this even possible? Presumably if everyone just saw the facts, then all would agree and solutions would be simple. This is not the case.
Issues tend to evolve as zero sum games, win or lose, and no one feels an incentive to play any other kind of more cooperative game. One main reason for this is lack of shared values and behavioral norms. This lack of shared vision is on display in spades in US national politics. It’s possible local actors can do better than this, in a face to face community where relationships matter more.
The inclusion of more diversity and diverse viewpoints is cumbersome; things take longer; it’s messier. But lack of listening and inclusion of citizen-generated alternatives can come back later and bite in the rear, for example with the California River Watch lawsuit against the county’s climate plan or citizen Chris Petlock’s points made about city water funding. If serious and invested stakeholders feel ignored, disrespected, and not heard, the process could end up being way more costly in the end.
If a party is heard, respected and honored, their views will be taken seriously and legitimate aspects will be incorporated into policy. Decision maker’s first reaction should by to consider the possibility of yes rather than no.
Who frames the issues?
This opens up a critical difference between using top-down staff and consultant-based studies as the primary means of delineating issues, versus a process that more involves the public. Consultant material tends to be difficult for citizens to wrap around. A more participatory method values and integrates public input. Many times public ideas and suggestions appear to be simply ignored, or easily passed off as unsophisticated or naive, which leads to a feeling that public comment is not really valued.
A good example here is the CEQA EIR process. Number one, the process suffers from a principle-agent problem, where the consultants, to keep on getting work, figure out what the principle actors want to hear. Thus, an impartial oversight is not achieved. Two, the format is overly complicated and technical, and citizen comments are summarily rejected on a basis they cannot understand. Three, thresholds for what is “significant” are not commonly agreed upon by all parties. These are some of the reasons why the Napa Street West hotel project was appealed.
Decision-makers side of the story is not always well understood by the public either. There are whole sets of issues and constraints the public does not know about. It is incumbent on officials to explain this, but often, time is not taken to give proper background and context. This type of information, frequently financial in nature, but also complicated policy context, could be more clearly put on the table. And, after all is said and done, someone has to decide; a conclusion has to be reached. End results cannot please everyone all of the time, and over time, decision makers take a lot of heat from all interested parties. Decisions should have a clearly described basis for why the greatest good and “best” outcome is chosen.
In sum, effective engagement requires a commitment to listening by both the public and decision makers, and an effort to include public ideas in solutions. A greater up-front investment of time and resources in this regard hopefully pays off, and better outcomes are the hopeful result.
How to unmask primary assumptions?
Collaboration among all parties can also lead to innovative solutions. (1) Underlying attitudes may shift if stakeholders have the time and space to evaluate theirs and others assumptions. It takes a fairly intelligent administrative process to even think of opening up what various stakeholder assumptions are. Usually public process ends up being different narratives endlessly aimed at each other without anybody really listening. Process becomes a battle of partial data and facts spun as if to constitute the only possible truth.
Decision makers learn to appear serious and attentive but can most times be seen to always take sides, and follow the assumptions and interests of particular parties. This is called politics, business as usual.
If a shared understanding among actors does result from public process that would be a great achievement. The social capital of shared vision could be developed, trust gained, and buy-in towards a common plan fostered. However, if assumptions about any greater good are to be evaluated, they have to be clearly articulated and put on the table with a transparent intent. A greater good has to be measured in some kind of win-win scenario; zero-sum scenarios are a race to the bottom of lesser good outcomes.
The map is not the territory
One roadblock here, as mentioned, is lack of shared understanding of data. Typically, parties take data and use it selectively to back up a parochial interest, without disclosing the values and assumptions behind. This is typical for human conflicts. Purity and conformity are behaviors to be dealt with. If the goal is to win, why compromise up front? Sonoma Valley issues about tourism, housing, education, social equity, and climate change have all broken out this way, with a current overwhelming sense of disconnect and lack of understanding among different parties. Huge common issues have languished over time like ships passing in the night. This kind of stasis is unsatisfactory.
Public engagement, in Sonoma Valley and the world, seems to be more of an ongoing battle than an effort to unmask the assumptions and really get down to the brass tacks of the issues at stake. If conflicting values and unshared behavioral norms are the problem in gaining effective or preferred policies, the honest thing to do is get those values out in the open so that the real causal factors of conflict can be dealt with forthrightly. Thus might be termed a rational approach to discovering actor’s interests.
For example, values are not facts; they are socially constructed preferences. If it becomes clear that a core stumbling block is absolute versus relative values, then we can ask where do values come from and why? This is all in an honest attempt to be rational, to come clean, and be a transparent and accountable public actor.
Try a Quaker Moment
One strategy for conflict reduction I have helped develop on my home front, with my number one partner, is the notion of a “Quaker moment.” In a Quaker moment, you say your piece, give your insight, and the other party’s job is one, to not think of replying, and two, to simply listen and attempt to understand what was said, to see it how the other person sees it. When you see what drives another person that gives empathy and compassion. Not listening breeds reactivity, contempt and conflict.
If Quaker moments are authentic, parties feel heard and respected. Then end result is that a person’s views and feeling are honored, and incorporated into the ongoing collective understanding. A particular final decision might not go your way, but at least you feel honored and heard.
Of course in life, relationship animosities develop, and while a Quaker moment is a good idea, and it works, there are always some people who gain persona non grata status. Those things are hard to get past; some folks have earned your disrespect. To the extent that relationship issues are tied to public interest and data issues, this can be an impediment to developing a solid engagement process and a shared community understanding, especially if such persona non grata players are ones who have decision-making power. Sometimes a eating a little crow might be necessary in service of larger effective process.
One strategy for difficult people off the bat is to make them into friendly dragons. Don’t always gird for battle; befriend dragons right off. Once battle starts, that may forever define the territory, and the opportunity for any listening will be gone.
Engagement principles
Some of the white paper’s principles for effective GSP stakeholder engagement are:
- Those affected by a decision have the right to be involved in the decision making process.
- The public’s contribution will influence the decision.
- Sustainable decisions will be made by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision makers.
- Those affected by or interested in decisions will be sought out.
- Input will be sought from participants in designing how they participate.
- Information will be provided as to how to participate in a meaningful way.
- How participants input affected a decision will be communicated to them.
These goals for public participation are designed to create a culture in which stakeholders tangibly shape outcomes. This could be seen as fostering a win-win, inclusive culture. Unfortunately, from the standpoint of purists and conformists, finding any middle path of compromise is seen as selling out. Navigating any kind of fair public engagement process is not for the faint of heart, as interests will always be in dispute.
Public involvement aspects such as meeting access and timing are important. For example, to not hold meetings on weekday mornings when most stakeholders are not able to attend, or to only post notices and agendas where most people won’t see them.
Stakeholders should also understand that they do not completely control the decision making process. There are people whose job it is to make the decisions after a proper process has unfolded. And as stated above, it is incumbent on decision makers to be able to say exactly how and why they arrived at their decision, and how they have accounted for public input. Agency accountability for public input has been lacking in many instances in the valley.
Involve the community from the bottom up
Apropos of diversity, SGMA requires that disadvantaged communities (DAC) be specifically included as stakeholders. DAC, for SGMA, means those making 80% or less of the state median income. For SGMA, defining disadvantaged communities includes census-based information on annual income, and other criteria about those served by small community water systems, such as mobile home parks, or small food farmers who rent and irrigate land.
Beyond SGMA, a significant number of local issues have to do with people who make less than the Area Median Income (AMI) of $60,000 for an individual. These issues have been pointed out by the Hidden in Plain Sight study, and have to do with the social equity issues of housing, living wage, health care, and education. It has been noted by Hidden in Plain Sight, and in the 2010 Census-based Portrait of Sonoma County, and by many small organizations, that there is a serious wealth and prosperity disconnect in Sonoma Valley.
Part of this disconnect can be attributed to lack of will and resources devoted to proper and full engagement of the public, and to too much top-down behavior. And, to lack of desire or ability to unmask the assumptions and structural factors that are causing this disconnect.
Sometimes it seems that those with the most power control everything to their own advantage. The AMI percentage of the population, the demographic majority, is left unrepresented and undervalued. Sometimes it seems like a constant uphill battle to get the powers that be to listen to the public, and/or to get officials to go beyond selective listening and represent the full community. Frankly, the above principles for effective community engagement are simply not put into practice in many, many cases. The community as a whole can do better here.
Look from multiple angles
From a decision-makers standpoint, the bulk of the public appears disengaged and only shows up when they have an axe to grind. For a decision maker, it’s hard to feel representative of disengaged people, and to gage just what the community as whole wants or where people really stand. The decision maker is then left to justify decisions on the basis of their own unquantifiable values.
Are decision makers primarily there to advocate for a parochial interest? Or can they develop a wider, representative horizon? Can they articulate clearly all the values and interests at stake?
Those who show up, run the world
The actors who do show up run the world, be they public, private, or from agencies. The ones who show up, voluntarily or as a career choice, disproportionality make policy and have input. These are the usual suspects, who as a cohort, go to all the meetings. It is up to them as whole to engage the rest of the public and related agencies in the most effective ways possible. If it comes down to it and no one else shows up, the usual suspects need to all listen to and respect each other, and incorporate what they all see as valuable into possible win-win outcomes.
Otherwise, they lobby for parochial outcomes and the world goes on as a zero-sum game.
For many local issues, Sonoma Valley is suffering a disconnect between the interests of different engaged parties. As the new GSA process indicates, the challenge is to show up, and demand a transparent, accountable and open process where public inputs can be accounted for and seen to make a difference. Given the space and encouragement, engaged actors just might be able to devise a win-win that has eluded the others so far.
The creation of a new agency is an opportunity to look at how old agencies work, and to reflect upon what the underlying democratic and representative ideals are. The challenge, as it was from the start: Can we bring our better angels forth and create a more perfect union?
Lessons of wolf recovery
(1) During the northern Rocky Mountain wolf-recovery debates http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/full_text_search/AllCRCDocs/94-65.htm
of the Clinton administration, when Bruce Babbitt was Secretary of the Interior, much was made of the process of ranchers and conservationists hammering out compromises. (Babbitt is now working for Jerry Brown on state water-transport issues.) These compromises held while the Clinton administration was still in power, but the underlying interests, values and assumptions of the actors really did not change. The compromises did not satisfy the actors, that their concerns were heard. The wolf recovery program today is still embroiled in the same issues it was before. A type of win-win turned back to zero-sum.
Deeply held beliefs may have been communicated about, but they were not changed. This will be a serious issue for the GSA to reconcile. Some level of fundamental, sharing of assumptions has to be gained in order for any agreed upon policy to hold over time.
How to solve small and large-scale common pool resource issues like climate change, poverty, housing etc., in a way that is seen as fair and just by all parties?
How to finesse different views of the same thing? Are all views and goals co-equal? Is compromise and a middle path selling out? What is going to work?
Constructive engagement is only the first step.
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