Read: “A Primer on Public Participation Principles”
We have all been there: We work on input for a neighborhood project and feel like the suggestions that have a direct effect on our communities are ignored. We work diligently, going to all public meetings, educating ourselves on the issues, meeting with our communities for ideas, working with the City, only to have it all disappear with no explanation and our requests for information met with annoyance. We are invited to an “input” public meeting and have the feeling that the staff views it as a box to be checked off, not a moment of real communication. When we have insisted on input, there are no feedback opportunities once a draft of an ordinance or policy has been released, our input is dismissed with no explanation.
Sound familiar? Sadly, this has often been our reality when working with the City to advocate for our neighborhoods and communities.
It is these citizen frustrations that led City Council to adopt the Public Participation Resolution.
On February 2018 District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval filed a Council Consideration Request (CCR), “Advancing City Public Participation” to “develop principles and standards for each City campaign to follow to create consistency, clear expectations, and ample opportunity for the public to provide input prior to Council action.”
These they are guidelines only: The City must find ways (strategies and ideas) and the money, when needed, to implement them. Anything that takes funding (for example taping the meetings) will need an identified funding source or budget amendment. The Principles mostly deal with citizen input and the implementation recommendations by the Government and Public Affairs (GPA) Department as well as the Mayor’s directives.
The fact that the Principles focus on the input process are, at the least, a recognition of public participation is important and its strength is important to the CoSA.
What the Principles are not, is a tool to partner in decisions made about our neighborhoods and communities.
Public Participation is Citizen Power
Public input and participation have very different outcomes depending on the amount of decision-making power stakeholders have. There is a real difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real power to affect the outcome of the process. We need two things to have real decision-making power about the futures of our neighborhoods: knowledge and a meaningful partnership with the City.
Illusory Forms of Participation
There have been several degrees of participation between neighborhoods and the City decision-makers. Participation that allows the City to claim that all sides are considered, but its purpose is to maintain the status quo, is often the norm. Many times this takes the form of presentations or charrettes that are educational. But when the City extends an invitation for “public input” it has often been a presentation and citizen input is superficially noted. The meeting feels like a box is being checked as part of a City process.
City meetings often become participation in participation. In one type of participation, a few representatives are given a place as part of the process (on a committee, board, etc.) to placate citizens and to give them the sense that they have power. The effectiveness of these representatives is based on how much technical assistance they are given to help make decisions and set priorities and on the extent that the community has been organized to press for their priorities. Sometimes, such as was the case in the recent sub-area planning meetings, neighborhood representatives stopped attending meetings because they did not understand the process or the jargon and acronyms or the presentations. There was no attempt to educate these representatives or to allow neighborhoods to choose alternates. Online surveys, charrettes, superficial input sessions are a way that the City “consults” with neighborhoods without actually taking account any real input. There have even been instances where City representatives convey meetings with residents on a project as tacit approval.
Partnership Depends on Transparent Information
What we seek is a true partnership with CoSA in decisions that affect the future of our neighborhoods and communities. We need a structured sharing of planning and decision-making with a transparent mechanism for working through differences and the decisions stand. To do this more effectively, we need access to City information. As one neighborhood leader states, “Essentially the City process is a big black hole… What is the point of PPR, if you don’t even have the basic process information available to the citizen to understand what is going on?”
One tool that would help citizens understand this crucial information and affect change would be flowcharts detailing City processes for any department or project requiring citizen engagement. An example of a city process flow chart is below:
In a recent NOWCastsa article, “San Antonio flunks public records test, compared to other Texas cities” it was noted, “San Antonio is, without question, the most backward city of any of the major urban Texas municipalities when it comes to making public records available. Opacity seems to be the rule.”
Specific Recommendations:
Tier One Neighborhood Coalition, who recently held a workshop on the Principles, suggested ways to make public information more accessible: Flow charts of CoSA processes, posted standardized minutes for all boards and commissions, livestream and archived video of not only City Council meetings, but Zoning Commission and Board of Adjustment meetings as well (which is part of the Mayor’s directive), City websites should be more informational and easy to find specific information, plans for development projects that require zoning changes or tax incentives should be more transparent, and all public meetings should be put on one City calendar so that the overlap is clear.
Partnerships also Depend on Community Building
Partnerships can work most effectively when there is an organized power-base in the community to which the the citizen-leaders are accountable.
Two things we can do as neighborhoods to more effective partner with the City is to maintain strong neighborhood associations and coalitions that are transparent, inclusive, and agree about overarching ideas; and educate ourselves about City process. We need to cultivate neighborhood “experts” on different issues.
Neighborhood Plan Process
In most cases, where power has come to be shared, it was demanded by the citizens, not given by the City. But San Antonio has a successful model for a true partnership between the City and neighborhoods: the Neighborhood Plan process. Neighborhood residents met in multiple meetings to share their vision for their neighborhood’s future. The City staff facilitated the meetings, offering their expertise to help residents create a plan that would be workable and sustainable. Unfortunately, the climate changed with the change of city manager who began to implement a top-down approach. Now citizens often feel in conflict with City staff instead of working towards common goals.
What can we do?
- Advocate for information transparency.
- Advocate for partnership between neighborhoods and the City infor all decisions having to do with the future of our communities.
- Advocate for the specific recommendations to make public information more transparent.
- Please access the website at http://www.saspeakup.com/and sign up for updates.
- We must commit to continue to monitor the progress of the implementation strategies. Identify and/or support the approval of funding For any strategy that needs to be funded (i.e. filming and archiving commission and committee meetings).
- Continue to ask how the ordinance is being implemented when dealing with different City departments. It is up to us, the public, to now hold City departments responsible for upholding the new public input process. Are we seeing a difference? Let our elected officials know what is working and what is not.
- Continue to ask about how the City makes decisions. Who are the stakeholders and who had input that created the end result?
- Identify ways the City can be more transparent and inclusive in its decision-making process.
- Pressure our elected representatives to adhere to the spirit of the Public Participation Principles.
- Continue to create and maintain strong neighborhood communities and coalitions and to educate ourselves to advocate effectively.
Sources
Arnstein, Sherry, R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” AIP Journal. July 1969. 216-224.
Chrissy Q. McCain, District 1 Council Aide