Policy Consensus E-News — December 2007

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PCI Board Member Ralph Becker Elected Mayor of Salt Lake City

PCI / NPCC Board member Ralph Becker was recently elected Mayor of Salt Lake City.  Becker was serving his third term in the Utah House of Representatives, where he was the Minority Leader.

Becker cites his work with the PCI board as influential in his approach to decision-making.  “This is an exciting opportunity to put into practice what I’ve learned and what we’ve developed at PCI,” Becker says.

When Becker takes office on January 7th, he plans on initiative a Salt Lake Solutions project, based on the Public Solutions system.  “Right now we’re collecting ideas about possible projects and we plan to evaluate and assess them to find one or two projects to begin a Salt Lake Solutions program,” Becker says.

While campaigning, Becker spoke about public solutions and collaborative approaches in forums and open meetings.  “I received a really encouraging response from people at those meetings about the need for collaborative practices in government,” Becker says.   “The Public Solutions idea has been very well received by the agencies as well.  Some of the departments are already doing collaboration, but we now need to be doing it in an organized way.”

Becker is featured in two PCI videos discussing how legislators can act as conveners in solving difficult public problems in their communities and how university programs can provide assistance to legislators.

Becker is a planner and lawyer with the consulting firm of Bear West in Salt Lake City. He specializes in community planning, environmental assessment, public lands, consensus building, and public involvement. He graduated from and now teaches courses as an adjunct professor at the University of Utah in environmental planning, policy and law, environmental assessment, public involvement, and public lands.  Prior to joining the Utah Legislature, Becker was the State Planning Coordinator under Governor Matheson.

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Bill Ruckelshaus Addresses Council of State University and Land Grant College Presidents on Universities and Collaborative Problem Solving

Bill Ruckelshaus recently addressed the Council of Presidents at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. His topic was Universities as Neutral Forums for Collaborative Problem Solving. Bill was introduced by Charles Reed, Chancellor of the California State University System and former PCI Board member.

In response to an increasing number of intractable public issues, Ruckelshaus described how a growing number of universities are providing neutral forums and process assistance to leaders.  Rather than the university solving the problem, the university’s role is providing the place and the process for engaging the parties in addressing the issues.

This is a way universities can demonstrate their benefit to state and local government leaders, he said. He also noted that universities also benefit when governors and legislators receive assistance in addressing issues successfully. These centers also benefit students because these projects offer experiences that can serve as teaching tools, as well as subjects for research.

Ruckelshaus stressed the importance of having a university president who champions this kind of center. He described the value of having both internal and external champions that help support and fund these programs.

As a concrete example of how a university can serve state leaders, Ruckelshaus described how the Ruckelhaus Center, a joint program of the University of Washington and Washington State University, is presently assisting Washington’s governor and legislature by conducting a process to develop consensus among environmentalists, property owners, and others over local critical-areas ordinances.

Last year, an Initiative was placed on the Washington ballot that would have required local governments to compensate property owners for restrictions on their land-uses. Even though it was defeated, opponents acknowledged that the measure's backers had legitimate grievances.

Even before the election, the governor pledged to work toward a compromise if voters rejected it. The election set the stage for the governor and lawmakers to approach the Ruckelshaus Center to assist them with a process for addressing the issue. "I know that this is a contentious issue and that we need to recognize the concerns of landowners, local governments, tribes, environmental groups and the state as a whole," Governor Gregoire said.

A bill was passed that provides for a 'time-out' while the Center assists all the parties in fact-finding and attempting to work out agreements for how to preserve and perpetuate agricultural activities while still protecting critical areas in the environment. That process is currently underway.

In the question and answer session following Ruckelshaus’s remarks, there was discussion about how it is less difficult for universities to get involved in controversial issues when they serve in this kind of a neutral role.  Robert Bruiniks, president of the University of Minnesota and incoming chair of the NASULGC Board of Directors, noted that in locating this kind of center within a university, rather than attaching it to a particular disciplinary area, it needs to be where it can carry out its commitment to providing impartial process assistance.

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University Profile:  Syracuse University’s Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts launches on-line collaboration teaching materials

For those who teach collaborative public management, governance and problem solving, the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict (PARC) at Syracuse University has launched a free on-line resource, E-PARC.  On this website you will find materials ranging from case studies of real-world occurrences of public collaborative problem solving in different cultures, to constructed simulations that actively engage students in collaborative problem solving processes.

The teaching materials include cases, simulations, syllabi, and other teaching resources links. PARC recently held a competition for cases and simulations used in teaching, and the winners’ cases and simulations are available on E-PARC.  All teaching materials are double-blind peer reviewed by a committee of academics and practitioners.

PARC, which is co-directed by Rosemary O’Leary and Catherine Gerard, just celebrated its 20th anniversary.  PARC is an interdisciplinary center within The Maxwell School at Syracus University. Established in 1986 with a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, PARC is dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of the analysis of conflict, the resolution of conflict, collaborative problem solving and collaborative governance - through research, education and practice.

E-PARC is part of the Program’s collaborative governance initiative.  O’Leary explains, “We’ve found that while there’s public administrative literature over the last ten years in collaborative public management and there’s more and more emphasis on collaboration, but people don’t know how to teach it.  Government officials, at the state, local, and national and even international level, are collaborating more, but how do you prepare people to do this kind of work?”

O’Leary points out that many scholars in the field of government and public management are finding that among the top skills needed by people in government today are negotiation, facilitation and collaborative problem solving.  “In the past people in government needed to know how to manage people and have knowledge of laws.  Now they’re saying that these three skills are the most important.  That’s what’s behind E-PARC.  We want it to be open-access and free so that anyone around the world can access and use these resources.”

Tom Bryer’s (University of Central Florida) winning simulation “Collaborative Design of Citizen Engagement in City and County Comprehensive Planning” has students explore the challenges of public managers collaborating with the public and allows them to experience the collaborative problem solving process.  In the simulation, the Secretary of the Florida Department of Community Affairs has charged an elected official, two public managers, a citizen activist, a business representative, and a facilitator with creating an alternative proposal for engaging citizens in comprehensive planning.

The winner for best teaching case, “Trust as an Asset: Building a Managed Service Organization within MACC,” by Jodi Sandfort and Timothy Dykstal (University of Minnesota), tells the story of the Metropolitan Alliance of Community Centers (MACC), a coalition of human service organizations in St. Paul and Minneapolis. The case illuminates the dual tracks of collaboration, one which emphasizes the human process of developing shared values and trust, the other which emphasizes the technical management skills needed when developing innovations that stretch across organizational boundaries.

The site, O’Leary says, has already received 100,000 hits within its first month.  “We’ve been getting calls from people asking about trainings for collaborative public managers and developing a suite of tools.  As we continue to increase, the next step would be to collaborate with other institutions and take this material on the road and do trainings.”

Access materials from E-PARC here.

To submit teaching materials for consideration for E-PARC, please contact Rosemary O'Leary. All teaching materials are double-blind peer-reviewed by a committee of academics and practitioners.

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New Report on Using Collaborative Processes to Resolve Land Use Disputes

When communities are faced with the prospect of developing land, changing its use, or protecting it, divisive disputes often arise among the many public interests and stakeholder groups involved.  The same issues reappear in new land use decisions and in turn effect how communities approach land use in general.

A new report from the University of Montana’s Public Policy Research Institute addresses this “inevitable, predictable, and ongoing” nature of land use disputes. “Responding to Streams of Land Use Dispute: A Systems Approach” provides best practices for designing and managing a land use dispute resolution system.

Best Practices

1. Diagnose the Existing System
2. Engage Affected Parties in the Design of the Program
3. Seek to Create a Comprehensive Program
4. Be Selective and Choose an Appropriate Scale
5. Employ Proven Tools and Techniques
6. Link the Program to the Formal Decisionmaking Process
7. Provide the Necessary Motivation, Skills, and Resources
8. Conduct a Series of Pilot Projects
9. Make Services Affordable, Available, and Efficient
10. Evaluate, Learn, and Adapt

To illustrate these practices, the Institute analyzed 27 state and local land use dispute resolution programs across the country. The analysis compared alternative programmatic functions and structures:  who participates, what issues are addressed, when collaborative methods are used, how collaborative methods are used, and the authority of programs.  The report provides an overview of possible collaborative methods, including forums for public deliberation, collaborative problem solving, and multi-party dispute resolution, and several tools and techniques for each method.

According to the report, “by combining opportunities for public deliberation, collaborative problem solving, and multi-party dispute resolution into the land use decision-making process, planners, decision makers, and others can create a more responsive system of governance, which in turn will likely improve land use decisions and land use.”

While “land use planners and decision makers are increasingly using a wide range of collaborative methods to prevent and resolve differences between landowners, public officials, and other interested parties. . . .one of the most compelling challenges in preventing and resolving land use disputes is to move beyond the ad hoc use of negotiation and mediation, and anticipate and manage disputes by incorporating a wide range of collaborative methods into the land use decision-making process.”

The report finds that the most common use of collaborative methods by the 27 programs was during the appeals process, concluding that this “may reduce the costs of resolving disputes relative to administrative hearings and litigation, but may not be the most effective way to prevent or at least mitigate some land use disputes.”

The Public Policy Research Institute is an applied research and education center based at The University of Montana. The Institute serves as an impartial, non-partisan forum to exchange ideas, develop and analyze policy options, and solve public problems. It assists and equips people with diverse viewpoints to solve problems related to the integration of social, economic, and environmental interests. Created in 1987 by the Board of Regents, PPRI is supported by a partnership of the University of Montana, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The Institute’s reports are designed to inform public policy in Montana by integrating scholarly research with the views and opinions of people interested in and affected by a particular policy issue.

Read the Institute's reports here.  For more information about the report and PPRI, contact Director Matthew McKinney.

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