Policy Consensus E-News — May 2007

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Maryland Holds First Fellows Program Training for State Leaders

The University of Maryland’s Center for Dispute Resolution (C-DRUM) and the Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) recently held their first training session for the newly inaugurated Fellows Program.

Modeled after The Center for Public Policy at the University of Texas School of Law’s Fellows Program, Maryland’s Program selects a group of government, judicial, and other professional leaders and trains them in collaborative problem solving and the resolution of public policy disputes. 

“As a public law school, we’ve always taken seriously our role of being a participant in the public life of the state as a resource and a convener,“ explains C-DRUM director and University of Maryland Law School professor Roger Wolf.  “With MACRO we can bring together the state’s leaders and show them what resources are available in both organizations to help the state improve its ability to resolve conflicts and to help leaders function better in their jobs.”

“One of the main goals of the training is getting Fellows to focus on opportunities within their own organizations or departments that they might now look at differently or now see as susceptible to a collaborative process,” says Wolf.  “People in different sectors were also able to see logical alliances with one another across organizations or departments.”

The 2007 class of Fellows included minority and majority leaders from the House and the Senate as well as cabinet members from the Governor’s office, directors of public foundations, county executives, leaders of community groups, and representatives from the state attorney general’s office.  One legislator commented that the training allowed for less formal interaction with colleagues, presenting an opportunity to discover how they might work collaboratively.

Presenters at the training, including PCI Executive Director Chris Carlson and PCI/NPCC Board member Roger Moe, offered both theoretical and practical applications of collaborative problem-solving.  

C-DRUM and MACRO sponsored the training along with the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s President David Ramsey and will hold trainings for Fellows every other year.  The participants’ feedback was extremely positive, and Wolf hopes that they can continue to meet with and gather input from leaders on how to better help them.

For more information about the Maryland Fellows Program, contact Roger Wolf.

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Cleveland State University Convenes Community Forums

In 2000, the building that houses Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs was built with a community forum.  The building is physically located at the university’s gateway to downtown Cleveland. Its creators planned the forum as a virtual and conceptual space for the community.  The building’s center is an atrium where community members gather regularly.  The Forum operates on the premise that an educated citizenry is crucial to a functioning democracy. 

The program was created in 1998 by then Levin College Dean, David C. Sweet, (Sweet is now president of Youngstown State University) He envisioned the forum as a way to bring the community together with the university to address civic issues.   This vision was embraced and expanded by the College’s current Dean, Mark S. Rosentraub. 

“We want people to be engaged in civic issues and in decision making,” says Forum director Kathryn Hexter. The Forum’s main goal is to catalyze discussion of civic issues that continues to evolve even after an event.  “The best outcome may be something that we can’t even predict or imagine,” says Hexter. “Who knows what will inspire someone at a forum to become involved in an issue?”

The Forum uses advanced technology to track the audience make-up as well as their reactions to the panelists, speakers, and discussions via an electronic audience responses system.  At the end of each forum, audience members enter their answers to four main questions in addition to responding to questions about their demographics:

• Did today’s forum give you any new ideas you can use?
• Did today’s forum inspire you to think about pursing new collaborations?
• How hopeful are you about the future of Cleveland?
• Did today’s forum suggest any strategies for transforming NE Ohio cities?

This year, the Forum is inviting a number of national experts to help explore “Our Place in the Urban Age,” a series of forums celebrating the college’s 30th anniversary.

To watch videos of recent Forum events and for more event information visit the Levin College Forum’s Events page.

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California Solutions Completes First Pilot Project

The National Policy Consensus Center (NPCC) and San Francisco-based Community Focus, chose finding a permanent home for the Mountain View Day Workers Center (DWC) as the pilot project for their joint program, California Solutions.  California Solutions is Community Focus’s new initiative for community collaboration and consensus building modeled after Oregon Solutions, an NPCC initiative.

In Mountain View and Los Altos, California, the presence of undocumented workers has stirred strong feelings among residents.  In 1996 both cities passed ordinances prohibiting people from soliciting work in the street.  The DWC has served as a resource to connect these workers with prospective employers, but for the past five years it has been housed in various temporary locations.  Addressing this issue required a collaborative process that would include participants who are often disenfranchised.

The Day Workers project was convened by former Los Altos Mayor Ron Packard.   Packard brought together thirty stakeholders from city governments, police departments, local foundations, service clubs, educational organizations, banking institutions, realtors local media, and representatives from the DWC, including day workers.

Two working groups are focusing on planning for a multi-service center that will include the Day Workers Center and at the same time, developing services and amenities that will allow the Center to expand while looking for a new home. While the process has not firmly identified a new location there is consensus amongst group members that they are on the right track.

Participants viewed the process as a success and felt that the DWC Board was revitalized by the project.   In addition, participants said they would recommend the California Solutions process to other communities.

“The end result is yet to be seen but getting this group together was a feat unto itself,” said Captain Tom Connelly, City of Los Altos Police. 

Community Focus recently received a grant from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation to conduct an assessment to identify three California communities to participate in future California Solutions projects.   For more information about Community Focus and California Solutions, contact Stephanie Anderson.

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NPCC Issues New Report On How Collaboration Can Leverage Community Benefits from Environmental Enforcement Actions

NPCC has just issued “Environmental Enforcement Solutions,” a report on how collaborative supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) can enhance community benefits. A SEP is an environmentally beneficial project that is undertaken voluntarily by a violator as part of an environmental enforcement settlement. The new report is based on a colloquium NPCC and the United States Environmental Protection Agency co-hosted.

At the colloquium, participants drawn from a variety of perspectives considered how collaborative approaches could be taken to develop Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs in ways that will leverage environmental, public health, economic, and social benefits for communities affected by environmental violations. Participants from government, communities, and academia,

Led by NPCC Director Greg Wolf and staff, the colloquium explored the benefits of more routinely expanding the SEP process to incorporate multi-sector, community-based collaborations in the selection, design, and/or implementation of a SEP.

Five key conclusions and recommendations emerged from the Colloquium:

• SEPs are underutilized generally; EPA and States should examine how to expand opportunities for SEPs, especially those where there may be enhanced community benefits.
• Collaborative governanceproceses hold big promise for enhanced community benefits by leveraging SEPs with other investments, actions, and commitments.
• States could benefit by examining SEP policies and practices to enhance opportunities for collaborative SEPs and incorporate “best practices” that work.
• States and EPA should consider developing publicly available SEPs libraries and idea banks to expand the opportunities for SEPs and make the process more efficient and accessible.
• Increased public accessibility to SEP information would increase the likelihood that an enforcement action will conclude with a SEP, and that the affected community will have a say in what type of SEP would best address its concerns.

Download the SEPs report (1MB PDF).

For more information about SEPs or Collaborative Governance, please contact the report’s principle author, Monica Kirk, Esq. at 503-326-3269 or report contributors Langdon Marsh, Esq. and Greta Lilly at 503-725-9098.

 

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