5.2. SR 07-24-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Unfortunately, the town meeting was scheduled during the week that I was on a family vacation, a poor choice of dates. Lacking the continuity of city staff, the meeting did not achieve any sense of consensus building. In fact, the division between opposing viewpoints deteriorated back to their original positions. A month of hard work on teambuilding was destroyed. Two members of the task force submitted their resignations and the project was on the verge of collapse. Fortunately, time healed most wounds, resignations were withdrawn, a joint meeting with the City Council was held and we were back on course. The moral of the story - a polarized task force will require constant and considerate staff continuity. Specific stakeholders were invited to a subsequent meeting. These included police and fire departments, ambulance service, refuse collection, post office, city transit, school district transit and the bicycle commuters club. A representative of each group described their access needs through the neighborhood and answered many excellent questions form the task force. This meeting was a watershed event for the task force. Many members had preconceived options based on inaccurate assumptions. The information provided by these stakeholders began the process where polarized viewpoints began to meet in the middle. Moving Towards Consensus The task force decided that the study area was much too large to evaluate at one time. Therefore they broke it up into three geographical sub-areas. This accomplished the following: · The neighborhood with the easiest problems was tackled first. · Quick "victories" were obtained and the task force realized they could cooperated and work together · Staff could keep up with the task force in the preparation of maps, exhibits and studies · Common problems of speeding or congestion could be solved separately Using the Hot Spots map, the task force began their evaluation. First, they determined whether the perceived problems required fixing or just public education. Once it was decided to fix a problem, staff was asked to suggest methods form the "tool box." The task force still found it difficult to independently sort for the proper tool. Occasionally, a member would suggest "Let's put in stop signs everywhere" or "Let's just post every city street for 25 mph." Over time, the task force itself would tell the member the error of his ways. Staff became less of a teacher and more of a moderator and resource. After solutions were identified for each location, the task force looked for continuity over the entire sub-area. Network problems, such as trip diversion or emergency access, were identified and the solutions were reconsidered. When all of the sub-areas were completely analyzed, the entire study area was reevaluated for network problems.