The spectrum of public involvement - pushing the limits

[Loretta Ishida <ishidalo@yahoo.com>]

Thank you to Dan Dozier for outlining different types of public involvement.  My preference leans toward the most involvement, such as empowerment and perhaps even a step further, where the public defines the agenda.  While this may seem idealistic and unrealistic to some, imagining what public involvement in the form of defining issues for government looks like may give us new ideas to add to what is being done.  

Theoretically, our political system allows people to define issues ("Just call your congressperson about X!"), but so often, political leaders, government agencies, and interest groups define the issues and sometimes the public responds.  How would our government structures look if the public defined what they were to address?

To tie this idea more directly to today's topic, I proposed the following:

I was impressed with the varied outreach tactics used in Region 4 that Betty Winter described.  Perhaps what was missing was having a basic relationship with the community in the first place.  From my experience in community development, establishing a trusting relationship with people is the first step.  Only then can one discover what people's priorities and interests are, and true change is most likely when actions are tied to those priorities and interests.  I realize there are limitations in funds and time that may not allow EPA staff to just go and get to know people, but some effort at listening to people's concerns (such as environmental concerns as defined by them) and understanding those concerns in the context of their life situation will have many benefits:

- A comparison is possible between EPA-defined priorities and the public's priorities.  This may lead to the EPA re-defining its priorities.
- Trust between the public and the EPA.
- A set of resource people, whose role as stakeholders in various issues is already known because of earlier conversations.  Various sub-groups can then be tapped to provide various types of public involvment necessary for particular projects and issues.

I imagine some of this is already occurring, but perhaps it is important enough that more relationship-building needs to occur.

Loretta Ishida