Evolving Community Engagement Panel Discussion

hello and welcome to our webinar on evolving Community engagement panel discussion with panelists from around the country this is our last event for our fall Tech in the city series my name is Jericho Logan and I am the Outreach coordinator for the Center for Urban and Regional analysis otherwise known as Kira and I will be your host for this event if you require closed captioning you will find a box at the bottom of the screen called CC please click the box and select show subtitles this will allow you to see the subtitles during the presentation please feel free to submit questions at any time during the webinar in the Q a box we will ask as many of your questions as we can in the last portion and if we do not get to your question we do apologize if you have any additional questions following the event please feel free to email me at logan.433 at osu.edu this event is approved for one aicp cm credit to claim your CM credit log into your my APA account on the APA website and enter in the event into your online log there will also be a brief survey at the end of the webinar if you have the time please provide your feedback I am now going to pass it over to our director Harvey Miller okay thanks cherica and welcome everyone to our last event of Autumn 2022. and we're following the theme of tech in this city how can we use technology in order to manage an increasingly Urban Planet and what are the promises and pitfalls surrounding these Technologies now before I introduce today's panel I'd like to take the opportunity to talk about our spring semester series of events and once again we have a set of all killer no filler events here talking about Urban Technologies and their promises and pitfalls so on January 27th we're going to have Ben Green from MIT who will talk about the smart enough City putting technology in its place to reclaim our Urban future and you can tell that's very skeptical view of uh of smart cities and I've read this book and um it isn't rightfully so and very insightful talk about um the limitations of smart City Technologies on February 10th we'll have Jeff Boeing from USC and he'll be talk about measuring built environments around the world new insights into urban sustainability and health and if you don't know Jeff Boeing's work he uses like massive global scale Urban data to measure properties of thousands of cities to look at around the world to look at their similarities and differences March 10th we'll have Peter Norton the author of fighting traffic but also more recently of a book called The illusionary Promise excuse me otanorama the illusion the illusory promise of high-tech driving and then finally on April 21st we'll have Paris marks author of the recent book Road to Nowhere what Silicon Valley gets wrong about the future transportation and you can tell from those last two book titles kind of what the perspectives are on these Technologies um so check us out well I'm going to our events page go to Kira cura.osu.edu events and you can uh

register for all these events and join us next semester so let's get to today's webinar today's webinar looks at a long-standing and still unresolved challenge in planning and policy which is community engagement how should planners and communities talk with each other how do we engage in a white with a wide spectrum of the community how do we build shared understanding and consensus and how to move our communities forward these are still very challenging topics both in academic and professional planning circles so about a year ago on October 20 20 21 senior members and senior members of three major planning firms connect the dots insights Sam Schwartz and Nelson Nygaard co-authored a Manifesto published in plantedizen.com it is time for public participation to evolve with Transportation Planning and this article is posted at our event webpage and the idea in this article was well you know we've learned a lot during this pandemic about how people can adapt and change their modes of communication what do we do going forward so today we're going to to discuss with four of the authors here The Gauntlet they've thrown out and their ideas for paths forward so it's a it's a great panel here I'll go ahead and read their bios all of them are very accomplished professionals and planners uh Marissa Denker is the founder and CEO of connected dots this evolved from Marissa's Fulbright project in 2024 and it now operates across the east coast of the U.S and also has a system branch in Dublin Ireland Marissa brings deep experience in engagement design design thinking inclusive public Outreach strategic Communications stakeholder management and project management she holds an MA in design practice from Dublin University and a ba in urban studies and English at the University of Pennsylvania she also happens to be an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and teaches a course on participatory cities she also co-founded a playful City a non-profit in Ireland that focuses on co-creating playful inclusive public spaces for all ages next we have Mike Flynn Mike Flynn leads a transportation planning practice at Sam Schwartz a top urban mobility and planning consulting firm where his team develops innovative solutions there's some of the most pressing Urban Development and multi-multal challenges for a range of public-private and non-profit clients he has worked for two decades in support of sustainable Equitable and economically vibrant communities across the North America and Beyond including a decade at the New York City Planning or New York City Department of Transportation Mike is active in developing sharing best practices in the industry through the American Planning Association the transportation research board The Institute of Transportation engineers and as an educator we also have Teresa Carr she's an economist planner and project manager bringing 20 years of experience in transportation planning she's the leader of the Nelson Nygaard Boston office her extensive project management experience expands from long-range transportation and public involvement in the alternative analysis environmental documentation under the National Environmental Policy Act NEPA and conceptual design she brings highly effective negotiation and communication skills with a proven track record of working with agencies and other stakeholders to reach consensus a controversial project decisions her talents also include the right size of the technical analysis needed to inform planning decisions at different stage of the Project Life Cycle and leading engaged multi-purpose teams that have high quality results or achieve high quality results then finally Samantha Donovan she's a senior Transportation planner at Sam Schwartz Consulting she received her master's degree in City Regional planning from the Edward J Blaustein School of planning and public policy at Rutgers University in 2019 currently based out of Jersey City New Jersey Samantha's work focuses on bicycle and pedestrian planning and community outreach through completing studies for municipalities throughout New Jersey she has seen the specific unique differences in communities in terms of needs concerns and preferred methods of Engagement born and raised in Vermont Samantha enjoys Ben and Jerry's ice cream who doesn't maple syrup and staring at fall colors okay so we will now go into the opening statements from each of our panelists and we'll go in the same order we'll start with Marissa hi everyone thanks for having me today um so yeah as you know my name is Marissa and I'm the CEO of connect the dots um I co-founded connect the dots in 2014 to really address like the disconnect between decision makers and the public and communities and how decisions were being made we felt that it really wasn't one-to-one essentially so we really tried to figure out how do we how do we connect that how do we get diverse voices included in that process so we were seeing a lot of like tick box engagement at the time a lot of like public meetings one and done and that's called engagement um but we really wanted to reimagine what engagement could be so engagement that could actually meet people where they are and truly enable people of all backgrounds interests biographies to really feed into the decision-making process in a meaningful way so because we didn't we didn't really see it was a core priority in the beginning we really had to impress I kept remembering like we were always like trying to impress the value of Engagement and but when the pandemic happened and over the pandemic and kind of the Reckoning that our society went through and is still going through we really started to see a shift um and really have been seen lately more and more public agencies and authorities are recognizing that it's critical to include all voices to really make more robust and inclusive decisions um they're really looking at how do we develop inclusive engagement processes and particularly ones that prioritize voices that have been left out of the system for for years um so in realizing and seeing firsthand I think slowly but starting to see and realize what it takes to do it right um and that's something that we talk about a lot of connect the dots is and what our article also spoke to is how it takes so much first of all so much time and really we talk about like the time it takes to build trust is something that needs to be thought about when we're developing projects and thinking about how that trust continues after a project so really thinking about how do we how do we build trust with communities particularly ones that already have a lot of reason not to trust so kind of starting from scratch in some places um how do we meet people where they are so what does that take it takes like some flexibility um creativity really being able to adapt and make sure your processes are so tailored to each different Community each micro Community within that um and also thinking about like investing in capacity building so how do we shift power how do we ensure that communities like there's already leaders in communities and how do we make sure that they can be part of this process and help even lead processes like this um so yeah so those are some things that we've been thinking about and that fed into this article um and it's been really great to see more firms like the ones we worked on with article really thinking in this way too so having more and more partners that will influence decision makers as well to to think in this way and make a difference in the society yeah that's the perspective I'm coming from okay great thank you uh Mike what's your perspective sure um well you know before I was a urban planner I really um started as an environmental and social activist and organizer and um you know I'm really interested in how change happens how social change happens um and now you know as I've kind of gone in this career direction for the last almost two decades um specifically in how kind of Urban Development and transportation change happens um it's an example of that in graduate school for my thesis it was focused on congestion pricing but it was really focused more on the public discourse and um acceptability and kind of more how people perceive it as a policy you know on the disconnect between something that a lot of academics and Advocates were saying is a great idea but maybe you know it wasn't clear if the public felt that way too um and I got a little dinged by our our department chair that my thesis was more of a public policy than a planning thesis but that's a reflection you know of of my interests and in the topic um so I've always been interested in how communities are involved in the process of change but I think as I've gotten older you know I've become much more cognizant of who really has a voice right uh when we talk about that um and personally you know I've become much more aware of my own ability to be heard because of my background and my you know interests or where I'm focused my economic status whatever it is um and so you know I have my opinions but really I'm actually more interested in how can we hear from folks who haven't been um as you know who haven't had as much of a voice kind of what Marissa was talking about um and and where I went to planning school at Pratt there was a strong focus on advocacy planning right the idea that we're not as planners imposing our ideas but rather we're kind of helping communities be heard um but you know that said the last thing I'll say is like at this moment in time where we see um a climate emergency um and really an urgency to address it you know I think um it's it's not just about like how do we um give communities more of a voice at large and sort of create more opportunities just to oppose projects but rather how do we have a more effective process and how do we make sure those voices have been more sidelined have a seat at the table right so it's it's more about how we're doing it's not necessarily that we need to be doing more and more and more um but rather how do we do it better so um that's you know that's kind of the perspective um that I was coming from here hey thank you Teresa please thank you Harvey so my observations on today's topic are from my perspective as a technical person um I'm an economist I'm a transportation planner by trainee I love figuring out how we use data to inform problem solving and in this sense I know that data are imperfect they tell us part of the story and the other part of the story comes from when we're talking with members of the communities where we're working and in the sense I respect the role of public Outreach and Technical work and yet usually I'm participating in the role of technical expert or project manager I'm keenly interested in how we can meaningfully incorporate feedback from the communities into our technical work and an example of this is at the outset of most planning projects we explore what we call a state of the system and that's a grounding of what conditions look like today and we do this by grabbing ridership data and crash data and environmental data traffic data make maps and we write reports and we also talk to as many people as we can because the data just tell us what the data tell us and the people who live and use the system tell us their stories and those stories are critical to making our project successful um one thing is that when I started in my career as a planner I was afraid of the public because I was a technical person from Boston living in Oregon and I felt like if I talked with members of the community I mispronounce a road name that know that I'm from out of town and they wouldn't respect me um and I got over that by having that experience actually happen I was working in the community I mispronounced something and I was corrected and yet I was corrected with kindness and what this person said really stuck with me and what they said was it is the community's members job to give us local context and understanding and what we bring to this process is technical knowledge and understanding and it's by working together that we can make things better for the community my perspective on this Manifesto I've been in the industry for over 20 years now and I can say that the projects that are most successful in my opinion are the ones that gets Grassroots support from the community you get that support by engaging all aspects of the senior community in the process from the very beginning and through the decision-making process too often I've been a part of public meetings that are attended by one slice of the community because due to budget or other reasons they're held you know six to eight pm on a weeknight location that isn't easy to get to or whatever the pandemic has opened up some real opportunities for us virtual meetings are easier to attend you can to attend from your kitchen or living room or office or even while you're on a bus goes beyond that I'm a True Believer of Engagement in locations where people will be the grocery store the library local soccer games the tools that we have now are being are put us in a position of really transforming how we do our work okay thank you and finally uh Samantha thanks Harvey hi everyone uh I guess I drew this Short Straw I get to go last after everybody else so hopefully nothing I say is too repetitive um over the past few years finding any sort of time to reflect has been difficult and contributing to this piece allowed I think all of us to do a bit of that public Outreach has played a large role in my career so far and truly is the part of my job I most look forward to interacting with community members and helping them feel heard and just having conversations with people and learning from them has been incredibly valuable at the end of the day the community members are the experts on the areas they live in and we need to hear from them but when covid-19 happened a lot of these interactions didn't exist anymore and we had to change our strategy a bit we were all looking for the best ways to create Fancy videos or host video calls and create online interactive tools for everyone at home I don't know about all of you but I did feel like we were moving into the future of Outreach and I was feeling very tech savvy but now that we're out and about more I'm reminded of the importance of in-person Engagement the opportunities to see people's faces and their body language their facial expressions the opportunities to speak one-on-one with someone casually which doesn't always exist in a virtual format you have breakout rooms but it's not the same so while virtual events have their benefits and allow for more flexibility and a wider audience to attend we shouldn't forget the value in meeting people where they are in person and having those interactions as well in my opinion a lot of what we wrote in the article still Rings true one year later and the future of public engagement will rely heavily on our ability as practitioners to find the happy medium between virtual and in-person engagement in order to reach the largest most diverse audience but also to be able to have meaningful interactions and back to you okay thank you very much um you know that that really um kind of summarized the whole view of the article from what I had all of you um your Reflections on that I'd like to um I'd like to pick up on something you said Samantha I'm able to let you go first this time is that uh you said it rings true but it seems like even a year ago it feels like the landscape has changed so if you were to rewrite it let's say today what what wouldn't ring true I think I think most of it does but I just think it's important that we remember that just because now we know how to do things virtually and can and can do it virtually there is really a very large aspect of Engagement that has to happen in person you know a lot of people will attend a virtual meeting just to listen they don't necessarily want to actively participate um so finding people in person like those are the people that have something to say and want to interact with you I'll add to that a little bit I completely agree with what Samantha just said one aspect just in rereading the article um we had in there of hybrid meetings and I think a year ago we were like hybrid meetings are going to be just fine and yet the since that time right like people have started to come back and we've um we've found that there are limitations of hybrid meetings when you have some people that are in the room in person and then you have other people that are trying to participate virtually and I think that if we were rewriting this article today we might recognize that in a somewhat different Manner and Marissa is super creative and maybe she's figured out a way to make hybrid meetings work um effectively and more power to you I think instead of hybrid I might have said something about parallel right like providing multiple opportunities for input so that you do have as Samantha said that in person component and meeting people where they are and yet also also at the same time during the same round of Outreach having a virtual component as well yeah Teresa that's exactly what we've been using the word like layering engagement which is exactly what you're saying and making sure that that way you have different techniques formats even like amount of time it takes to give your Insight can vary across those layers or parallel lines yeah so we previously we talked about uh trust and you know some of your opening statements I'd like to hear more about that like it do you feel like we're at a point now that with these new modes of interaction and new kind of awareness of of how um people can interact and the possibilities that we we can we can move towards a situation of Greater trust because that that is an issue like when some of our local engagements here in the community and it's a common thing among planners that's especially vulnerable communities have kind of like they've they've heard this before we've parachuted in and talked on before so what's really new here in terms of building trust I guess is my question foreign I think I don't know if it's I think it needs to be recognized more that time that it takes like you can't just do a you know a public meeting in three weeks because you need to actually take time to build relationships understand who's there even understand if a public mean is the right format as well um and I think a big part of building trust is like what you mentioned kind of like the follow-up after um I think one thing we've all talked about together is the fact that you know we come in as consultants all of us on like a project by project basis but I think it's about how does the kind of the client like the agency the city whoever working with can keep kind of continue on from where we left off and keep those relationships going outside of projects um continue to come back after a project make sure you're consistently following up to be like here's how we heard heard you here is how we incorporated what you said into our decision here's how we heard what you said but we couldn't incorporate it and here's why so making sure there's that transparency but also continuing continuing those relationships outside of projects so the next time a project comes you already have those relationships and you're not starting from scratch again and that kind of helps to keep that trust yeah Mike yeah yeah and it's interesting especially you know especially if you're in the position of of you know either being a consultant who's brought in for a project right or if you're someone in government who's focused on one project but that highlights you know Marissa what you said the the need to kind of look at the bigger picture even if that's not exactly how it's going to be written into a specific scope of one project right but but from a Public's perspective it's all kind of the same thing and and that's how you get planning fatigue um I wanted to also just kind of reinforce another thing Marissa said which is um how you build that that sense of trust and and um I think it needs to kind of for any individual process it needs to feel kind of organic and it needs to feel like it's a real good faith effort to involve folks and I think one way you do that um which Marissa alluded to is what I would call almost like pre-outreach it's where you have those initial conversations maybe with grass top you know kind of community leaders folks who are are connected to what's going on on the ground but who you can kind of reach more easily right and just understand right like what are the historic issues that we need to consider what you know are people's main concerns going to be what is the right way to engage you know before we even develop a engagement plan what are those sort of must-dos or can't Do's or or um bookends you know that are going to help us uh structure it appropriately and then yeah the other piece is is the follow-up but I would say even just in the process um it's really important to assuming you're going to have kind of a multi-step engagement process at each step you need to kind of come back and say okay here's what we heard here's how that's affecting the process right like people have to understand that it's not just kind of going out into the ether but that um it's actually meaningfully affecting the process so I think those are a couple of key ingredients to building Trust I love that um and I would add to that something that I heard from one of you in your interest statements that part of our job is to build capacity um because you know we are consultants and we have contracts and we work with our clients and with Community Partners and part of what we are doing is we are building up knowledge and expertise and providing tools so that the work can continue long after our contract is finished and in some parts like it's it's really fun working with public side clients you know you get them ready for a meeting and then they're the ones running the show and you're there to answer questions if they need you to answer questions but it's really their show because they are the ones that are going to have this long-standing relationship with the community and that extends to the community-based organizations says Mike was saying these Grassroots Community leaders building the capacity the knowledge within them so that they are able to continue these processes and these conversations beyond the you know whatever the technical prod problem that we're trying to solve in a specific project I want to remind the audience to please put your questions in the Q a box and we'll get to them towards the end of this conversation or we'll get to them earlier depending on how many questions are coming in so um let's talk from the city perspective now first of all you know what you're what you're saying sounds good you know different modalities of Engagement but also maintaining engagement over time not just going from issue to issue and project to project that seems really time consuming and resource intensive how do how do cities do this I mean what's a good way to do this cities are strapped across budgets like uh like a lot of the public sector what are some do you have any tips for the planners in the audience and City officials I I could start um I guess I've been kind of on both sides of that in public private um I think something that I feel pretty strong a bit strongly about as a best practice is that you do need a single from an organizational standpoint at a transportation or a planning department you do need you know either a person or a group that's kind of like the um call it the Chief Information officer or you know a central kind of community um engagement and and sort of dialogue you know um One-Stop shop who can kind of see the bigger picture not only you know across projects but even across the whole department or city or Community um and has that bigger view um and can help coordinate to you know avoid instances of um overlapping effort but what that translates to is a waste of resources right like if you've already got this one planning project and you're going to be engaging the community and you've got another one you know coming down the pike maybe there's an opportunity to to kind of do it all at once right in an Ideal World sometimes there's not but sometimes there is um so that would be one you know concrete suggestion is um really not to even if you have your planning staff are the ones that are actually developing and implementing the engagement on a project by project basis I think you still want to have one Central person or group that's kind of has that full lay of the land in terms of what's going on and um and can help coordinate those efforts and it doesn't have to be a lot of resources it could just be one person but I think um centralizing some of that knowledge within a public agency is important that's one idea yeah I totally agree I think that can save cost in the end because otherwise each time a consultant team comes in we're doing that process from scratch every single time and that's a lot of effort up front especially like kind of like Michael's time like the pre-outreach like mapping the stakeholders understanding where they all are who they are like if that was information that the client tells and could kind of add to it at the conclusion of each project and keep it strengthening it then that would save so much time I think and and money and effort that it would be worth it doesn't this also require boots on the ground I mean you have to have people like going to the meetings and at the community events and going to neighborhoods and talking to people it's not just a matter of like appointing like a community outreach SAR within the city government how does the city manage that or are there other ways of handling it okay um not absolutely and and depending on you know where you are those boots on the ground historically you know are either City staff or their consultant staff but these days you're you're even seeing more where it's actually members of the community right themselves are are kind of um recruited and compensated for their time as project ambassadors or um otherwise sort of involved uh which I think is an interesting thing we can talk more about but um uh that does take resources and you know you need to um you need to anticipate that in your budgeting process and you know I think it's interesting um I think back to when I worked on Capital programs and every Capital project you know there were rules of thumb about how much of the construction cost would be the design cost right 10 20 of the construction cost you need to set aside for design maybe we should have a rule of thumb about a community engagement you know uh portion of planning projects um that could be a good you know and that way if you're doing if you're putting it on your tip if you're you know putting it in your long-range plan whatever um you can make sure that that you're you're putting the appropriate resources to it others and also say um combining projects like I mean even if it's separate projects thinking about opportunities where you could host a meeting that covers multiple um so that could be kind of one way to think about it rather than going back to the same Community for like three different projects actually you know connecting beforehand and then doing in a more cohesive way for people um we also did a project recently with um the city of Lancaster and in Pennsylvania and we created like a Citizens planning committee and that was a really cool way to do the boots on the ground part because they were paid but they were paid to both help like lead and steer the engagement process through sessions that we LED with them but also to help Implement so they were like hosting their own sessions hosting on pop-ups knocking on doors of neighbors and it's even a more trusted Source than if like the consultant came in and did that but rather it's your neighbor it's your friend um so that was a nice way and that's something that hopefully the city is actually considering continuing even outside you know so it's a source across all a resource for all projects so things like that are other yeah um and I was quiet on this one just because I've never worked for a city um but I can give you my perspective um and I'll start with I love Mike's idea of having a set aside percentage that should go to public Outreach and of course it depends based on you know lots of different factors but I know that in my head I've started to do that on my projects you know when I'm budgeting if something is between X and Y percent that you know it for public Outreach that feels right right and so I think that that should be more standardized and in our practice the other thing I will say is um I think most cities where I hope most cities understand the value of having a dedicated neighborhood resource or dedicated community resource I know on many of the projects I live in Boston many of the projects that I work on locally we do have a neighborhood liaison who does all of that boots on the ground stuff Harvey that you mentioned is going to all the community meetings and having personal relationships right and building that trust with members of the public who do come to you know our project meetings and that I can say viscerally that makes a difference having that voice that has been with you not just for this process but the past five or six processes um and something that Marissa said had Rings true for me for sure which is um there is a cost of not doing this and that is a political cost it's an and project cost we've we've all seen projects crash and and burn and and that generally happens when you have not set up a good process um so you know you can weigh the cost between what it takes to run a good public process and the risks maybe it's less specific costs but it's the risk of your project not actually happening if you don't and how how do you broker um differences of pinions and conflicts and power differentials in in these uh engagements because we've all been involved in these Community meetings where a few voices just dominate so maybe I'll start with Samantha because she works in uh bicycle planning and it's always a very controversial topic what's your experience in this area um when it comes to like differing opinions a lot of the times we like to show people the issue firsthand so in a lot of our projects recently in order to help people understand others perspectives we've been doing a lot of in-person or hybrid or virtual Road audits um so there was a project that we did for municipality in New Jersey um and it was during covid so we did do it virtually but we had a 360 degree camera that went out to this town and looked at a bunch of really difficult intersections and we actually had a community volunteer who was wheelchair-bound and so we filmed all of these uh intersections with this individual attempting to cross and he would narrate it while he was doing it and there was the sound of the traffic and we played these to the steering committees to the public and listening to this individual talk about his experience and getting to watch it even if they were like well we don't understand why are we looking at this intersection there's no problem here we don't need anything here they got to see from someone else's perspective the issue and they were like oh wow like we don't travel like this like we get it now um so that's one of the strategies that we've used and I mean an in-person audit is way more valuable than the virtual one but our 360 degree camera with the audio also it worked okay that's a clever use of new technology anyone else have any uh good ideas like that how do we get people to see other people's perspectives or at least have empathy in these uh interactions I think um that's I mean that's one of the that's definitely one of the fundamental uh hopefully goals of a good engagement process and um one way to do it is actually in the information that is education right it's the information that we share with the people who are participating you know about um their own Community which sometimes they're not they may just not know right like who who they know they're immediate neighbors they may not be as aware of other neighborhoods or other folks that they just don't interact with as much in their in their day-to-day life so I think you gotta uh I mean it's kind of planning 101 but you gotta reflect out um some of the basic facts about the community and then I think as you get further into the process um it becomes really important for those folks to understand who we're hearing from and who we're not hearing from if you can measure right through your survey or through um in-person engagement or whatever it may be actually compare you know from these groups uh whether it's by income or different neighborhoods or or race and ethnicity you know we're hearing these are the priorities and and from some you know we're hearing some differences from different groups um I think that can be eye-opening um we had a project in New York City a city-wide plan where as you'd expect a lot of the folks you did hear from In the initial Engagement online engagement especially you know where the folks um from wealthier neighborhoods and uh were much more focused on biking to be honest was that like that was the top priority across the board and then we did targeted telephone Outreach to the neighborhoods that we specifically were not hearing from that were underrepresented just old-fashioned telephone based polling um asking the same kinds of questions and what we were hearing were the priorities were actually uh there was some similarities but there were also some pretty significant differences there was much less emphasis on biking there was a lot more emphasis on uh transit for example um and things like personal safety on the street so you know I think reflecting that back to the folks who were more engaged uh was sort of like a wake-up call to them you know like oh wow right okay maybe I'm in a little bit of a echo chamber with my fellow Advocates or you know folks who are the people that I tend to be associating with so um yeah It's Tricky but I think information can be key to that okay great I'm going to turn it over to uh Jerica now who's going to field some of the questions from our audience Jericho please great um I'm going to start with the first question asking how do you account for the needs and desires of future residents not in companies incumbent existing residents and how do you convince residents of us of a small neighborhood that they have an obligation to share in the infrastructure provision for the entire region I can start on this one uh so I I think you know it's a it's a great question and I think it starts with um at the outset of any specific project um we do an Outreach strategy and so I think that we have the opportunity in an Outreach strategy if you're if you're in the neighborhood but you want to hear from a larger region uh to think about the mechanisms for um getting feedback and who is going to be providing that feedback so Marissa mentioned stakeholder mapping is super important for us to hear from the current residents of an area that we are working in but it may also if we're looking at in a neighborhood that's in transformation or if we're looking at um who's traveling through this neighborhood or maybe it's a neighborhood with large employment areas or a university or hospital or something there's a lot of activity and so we do want to do that stakeholder mapping exercise so that we make sure that we're very are effectively reaching out to a variety of different users and then we also want to employ different strategies for each of those user groups for example I'm I'm working on a neighborhood project right now here in Boston where we know that the traditional public meetings work really well for a a subset of our um of our stakeholder groups however we also know that we are not um we are not reaching bus riders we're not reaching younger people and so we have different strategies in place to intercept going out to bus stops and you know having a survey that's easy to take while you're waiting at a bus stop or while you're riding on a bus um having QR codes available right just different strategies that reach different groups public housing we might have paper surveys in the lobby of a public housing development um and a board um or actually have a person staff aboard during a certain period of time um and I think that the way we um to get the latter part of this question how do you convince I mean I hate that word convince right it's more how we're setting the tone of the project and how we're setting the tone of how we're using feedback um and I think that we have the opportunity to make it really clear that we are seeking input from the region you know and that we are looking you know the the specific project purpose and the reason why we're doing the project and be very clear that we're looking for um broad areas of input I'll just add one quick thing um sometimes it's a little more effort but sometimes you can actually ask people to kind of inhabit some other person right and try to see it through their eyes um we did that with our colleagues here on a project in Jersey City recently you know where let's say you're coming at it from your particular perspective but maybe um there are newer residents or it could be any other group really um so you you kind of create these personas right and and you ask folks to kind of imagine that they were them how would that affect their travel decisions you know in the case of Transportation um and uh it's just one one way to kind of try to get folks to to be pulled out of their you know sort of um personal uh viewpoint what we're talking about before as well right is how do you like with controversial um differing opinions and things like that how do you step outside of yourself and think in someone else's predicament how they would feel great thank you so our next one um says it strikes me that both rfps should have more specifications in regard to these principles and that the consultant teams have an opportunity to distinguish themselves by going beyond the minimum as a measurement of success since the article came out how much of this change of approach have you already started to see I have a lot of thoughts on this one um I think I do think rfps need to be improved as a whole I think we've been starting to see a little bit like this since the article in general since the pandemic we've been we have been seeing more rfps that do emphasize like we want to see robust and Equitable and inclusive engagement like those are buzzwords used a lot but the budget doesn't always match that um or they sometimes rfps go further to be almost too specific or prescriptive with what that is and when you're too specific then that doesn't always then you're kind of stuck and like like Mark said you don't really have that opportunity to to iterate to shape it in a more tailored way but then also the Converses if you have it too broad then in an RFP then the consultant you know should be able to write more about I think how they would approach the engagement process rather than have to be prescriptive in that scenario either because again you need to do like what Mike talked about like a kind of phase zero pre-engagement to really shape the engagement process so I guess what I'm trying to say is also I think rfps need to allow be clear on like the principles of Engagement and like the level of robustness I guess that they're expecting but not be prescriptive enough and allow for kind of that flexibility once the process starts too thank you um so our next one asks um any thoughts or recommendations for reconducting Community surveys hard to do this on a very limited budget and with no in-house survey expertise I can start on this one we've we've had great luck with SurveyMonkey um so I feel like um being being clear um what you're trying to achieve out of a survey um I think that I my my personal thoughts on this issue are that surveys are a great opportunity to raise awareness about your project and in that sense to make it as low a threshold of participation as possible um big QR code um simple like easy to answer I can do it on my phone I can do it on my phone while I'm waiting for my bus and oh there's my bus it's coming right so that means like having it take under a minute I mean and of course depending on where you're at in your planning process um maybe you need to ask more specific and thoughtful questions but if you're trying to raise awareness about the project simple and that doesn't need to be expensive SurveyMonkey is really easy um and as I said I've been in this industry for 20 years and so that means that I'm a little rusty on technology and and I could figure out I think how to develop a serving monkey survey and I think that the threshold for um in terms of cost of running it is relatively low as well I think it's also thinking about you know like what is your best tool like Teresa was kind of saying based on like what information you want to gather is survey the best mechanism or are there other ones that could also be an option like could a pop-up work instead or could a pop-up connected to a survey work instead so really trying to kind of match the insight you're trying to gather with the form you're trying to use thank you um so our next one um it says great information and experience from all of you um and they look forward to working with you um their question was is uh if if citizens planning task force members aren't elected but have a lot of influence and outcomes would it be enough for the public to gain trust to hear um that these people were appointed by their elected representatives in a public hearing where public comment was requested so super specific question yeah I think it depends I think citizen planning task force like they they've they're kind of slightly newer I would say and I think they've been coming in like different shapes and forms um the city of Philadelphia did one recently um and that was really they did an application process so it was like a public application process the I think the rubric was probably hopefully like transparent ahead of time but then the idea is that people would apply so it wasn't appointed I do think that's probably better when it's not appointed but I know that there are times where it does help in a way that you're kind of mapping the stakeholders doing kind of that pre-work that we talked about and then trying to figure out like who are who's the Right Mix um to make sure that it's representative across and having like a rationale behind how you're designing and making that transparent too and I think transparency is the key word there Marissa um in in getting at the specific the specifics of this question is being able to pull that thread between who's sitting on that board and how that person ended up on that board and the transparency or rather that that that that process should not have been opaque right you should be able to pull that threat and understand thank you that's so good yeah yeah no just as I mean as a general point I mean I know it kind of goes without saying but like public engagement just like any planning process is is a balancing of you know the ideal with the Practical right and and in a lot of cases you're not going to really have the ability to um to do a perfect process and and uh I think everything is is sort of a balancing act in terms of you want a public you want a community engagement process that's credible that's fair that's thoughtful that's good faith right that people perceive it was the best it could have been um and by you know hopefully by the end people respect the outcomes of it uh even if you know obviously no one is going to be 100 happy every time um but I think it's creating the trust in the process but um but you can't really I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't really create a perfect process it's always going to be a bit of a compromise right so if the people if the community representatives are appointed but hopefully you can show that they're pretty representative and that those who appointed them are from you know groups that are plugged in like hopefully that's that achieves a threshold of gaining trust even if it's not like a uh full election you know or something like that thank you that was really nice um so I have uh one more right here um that I really want to know and it says how do you coach others in your organization agency to better engage with all impacted communities of a project not just have those who are already engaged or speak the loudest so in expanding on the practice of community engagement I can start on this one if that's helpful um and I um so something that I always do with my clients at the outset of our project and and so first of all like when the question asked about like within your organization and I don't think I need to convince anybody within my firm like how to um the importance of Engagement so I'm maybe thinking more of like if I'm working with a client that doesn't see um at the outset of projects I I always do a risk assessment um and it's a super it sounds really wonky and boring but I highly recommend them for everyone there's they're actually a lot of fun and you're playing um a whole bunch of what-if scenarios like let's think about all the different things that could go wrong um in in this scenario and it could be um it could be cost it could be environmental factors it could be um process it could be lack of data um it could be political and it could be controversies Public Country controversies and I feel like through that process of the what ifs you're not trying to you know hit somebody over the head saying You must do things the way I tell you to do them but rather you're teasing that out in a conversation about what could go wrong if you choose not to engage the communities who would be affected by the project and so I found that to be a really effective way to go about this I think there's a lot of Education needed in public agencies I guess it's um I think when you're in Consulting hopefully you know you're in a way your livelihood depends on this is kind of what Teresa was something to me it's like your success depends on trying to show that you're good at what you do right that's why people hire you but I think you know in government you're trying to keep things on the rails and you're trying to deal with day-to-day challenges and and move things forward and it's a different set of incentives it doesn't always incentivize Innovation or or trying to rock the boat right so I do think that there is a fair amount of Education that needs to happen and what you see sometimes is in communities they've done they haven't done public engagement very effectively in the past and so it just becomes very adversarial and it just becomes basically a means of of people opposing things or just the loud voices getting heard and they already know that's going to happen and it's sort of like why are we even bothering and they don't see the value you of Engagement because maybe they've only seen it being a not helpful thing but then it can come back you know in the 11th hour right when the project gets opposed or in the long run when communities stop trusting you at all and your whole agenda gets stopped in its tracks so um I I don't have a simple answer for how you educate you know around that um I I almost feel like you're gonna you're gonna need maybe some Visionary leadership who who kind of recognizes that who takes that bigger view um and says you know it's more of a systemic challenge right it's it's more than just we need to do a little more Outreach on every project it's like no how do we rethink the way we do it so it becomes a positive constructive thing right where we're actually building a good relationship and building capacity and um having more of an ongoing dialogue with the community um uh yeah I mean I wish I had a a an easy solution but I think it probably you know there's there's a lot staff can do but in large part it's also about educating leadership yeah we've done some of like trainings for City councils before um and that type of thing I think is is really important because it you know they can then apply it to their own projects and I think that's another thing why we've been asked to do training sometimes is one like people realizing that they're in-house staff needs to understand like exactly what this person was asking about but um but also to build capacity right in internally as well so that you don't always have Tire Consultants you can have internal capacity either even as partners too anybody else on that and I think um if we have time very quickly for for one more question um I think um I have one here that that is very interesting so um how do you uh tailor engagement differently for Rural communities versus with little staff versus more sophisticated urban planning processes foreign how do you do this in smaller communities with the fewer resources and staff and and also just different issues and stakeholders Samantha yeah I guess I can talk about this a little bit we've done actually quite a few um bicycle and pedestrian plans for some of the rural municipalities in New Jersey and what we've really focused on is using what they already do so what currently works for them when it comes to reaching their community so we had one municipality where everybody watched the like local cable channel like everything was live streamed on it they posted all these uh like advertisements and announcements on it so all of our engagement Focus very heavily on using that because they know it works um and then for like rural communities maybe in urban ones you would kind of just like go walk around like chat to people that are out and about like at a bus stop you don't have that in a rural community so we were also very focused on identifying very early in the process what are some events where we can find people and we had this very rural New Jersey town that hosted this ginormous car show and it was a little bit ironic that we were advertising a bike ped plant at a car show uh but it worked and there were so many people there and they were willing to talk to us because they were already at this event um so I think it's really just focusing on what if anything do they already do and what is already going on in this town that you can piggyback off of wrap up I totally agree and I think like really you can find new resources that they wouldn't even have thought about before like in Lancaster City they had like these red shirts like trash collectors and we're like they can hand out flyers and then and so it's kind of building capacity or anything no you have it okay great thank you for this wonderful conversation and thank you audience for all these great questions um you know um um I think we're wrapping up now so um this is again our last event for August 2022 or August Autumn 2022 and check when in with us in the spring in 2023 where we'll have a there are serious events in this Tech in the city uh webinar Series so everyone uh take care have a joyous but safe holiday and we'll see you next year goodbye

2022-12-04 12:33

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