Colorado Greetings

[DeAnne Butterfield <bmhbutterfield@qwest.net>]

I'm DeAnne Butterfield, current president of the international association for public participation (IAP2).  Formed by senior practitioners and scholars in 1991, we have 1100 members and conduct training, publish a newsletter and journal, and hold a conference in US or Canada each year.  We have 18 chapters in most major US and Canadian areas plus South Africa and Australasia.  I'll send the IAP2 core values in the next round. An initial comment about the Goals is that the list does not include the goal of Making Better Decisions--this is almost always an outcome of a good public process--but agency people don't need to to public participation only because it's required or righteous.  There is definitely something in it for them substantively.

My first work with EPA was in 1980 when I co-mediated what is now called regulatory negotiation/policy dialogue about the 1979 clean air act amendments.  From 1991-99 I directed a coalition of local governments, unions, residents, business, environment and peace interests focused on DOE and the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site and worked with Region 8.

I'd like to talk more about David Sale's distinguishing dialogue from technical information sharing.  Also Peter's entry about whether EPA should try to get the public to talk together vs. talking to the agency.  I'm a believer in dialogue and from experience know that the agency pays much more attention to broad coalitions who have worked out their differences than to 50 different groups with differing positions.  The question is the proper role of EPA is helping this happen.

Thanks for trying this.  I'm looking forward to it.