RE: Decisions Suited to Collaborative Efforts

[Michael Glaab <michaelglaab@worldnet.att.net>]

Hello:

Thank you for the illuminating document which you provided us.

As a point of clarification, the following statement in the document which you kindly provided appears to imply that the facilitator role should be invoked by an entity which is independent of the participating stakeholder agency ( AP ) : 

"The authors explicitly call for agency participants to NOT combine a facilitator role with the hats they must wear. Two different people from the same agency could divide responsibilities, with one being the facilitator.    However, Wondolleck and Ryan see this as a risky approach." 

The inevitable conclusion, assuming that my interpretation is actually correct, is that the facilitator should be independant of the stakeholder AP and probably also be independant of all of the stakeholders. If so, then what authority should the facilitator be empowered with to assure that all of the participating stakeholders - including state and/or federal agencies - really act in good faith in a collaborative effort to successfuly resolve the environmental issue? 

Michael