The Collaborative Edge

A quarterly newsletter of the Center for Collaborative Policy

January 2003

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News: Center Update and Upcoming Courses

In the news section of this inaugural edition of the Collaborative Edge you’ll find background information on who we are, what we hope to accomplish by launching this newsletter, and information on an upcoming course offered in the Sacramento area by the Center and a course in Cambridge, Massachusetts offered by the Consensus Building Institute (CBI). Link to the Edge news by clicking here.

Toolkit: The Elephant Zone

My trial balloon was a lead balloon. This is where the rubber hits the road. We need to make hay while the sun shines. But what about the elephant in the room? – Metaphors, hyperbole, folk sayings, clichés…our normal speech is peppered with figurative language. Can a mediator make intentional use of such language to help a group achieve a breakthrough? To read Center Associate Julie Lee’s thoughts on the power of metaphor, click here.

Challenging Issue: Collaborative Dialogue in the Post 9/11 Information Security Context

Since the tragedy of September 11, agencies at all levels of government have had to rethink how much information can be made available to the public. What effect is tighter information security having on policy consensus work? The Center has already felt tangible repercussions, in the form of the demise of a consensus-based work plan to reduce the generation of hazardous waste by California’s petroleum refineries. Is this an issue for our field? Read more and offer your views by clicking here.

Success Story: California Department of Parks and Recreation’s Off-Highway Vehicle Stakeholder Process

Take a roomful of people who are passionate about off-highway vehicle (OHV) recreation, who are accustomed to courtroom battles over the hard issues of OHV-related noise, public access / trespass, environmental impacts, and safety. Now, help them come to consensus on a statewide management plan for OHV use in California. This was the daunting task undertaken by Center Senior Mediator Lisa Beutler, beginning in 2000. With Lisa’s assistance, the OHV stakeholder group has thus far crafted three consensus legislation packages in addition to consensus guidance for several OHV related-initiatives through the California Department of Parks and Recreation. To read about Lisa’s facilitation approach, the OHV stakeholder group’s successes, and the new string of spin-off collaborations, click here.

Letters to the Editor

As might be expected for our first edition, we have no letters to the editor (yet). Read our submission policy and how to get your letters and contributions into the pipeline by clicking here.

News and Information

Center Update and Upcoming Courses

Welcome to the Collaborative Edge! What exactly is its purpose?

It is with utmost pleasure that the Center for Policy Collaboration rolls out this inaugural edition of the Collaborative Edge. We aim to serve as a free venue for the exchange of collaborative ideas, news, and information not only for the Center and our colleagues in the field of public policy consensus building, but also for any individual, group, organization, or agency interested in the ins and outs of policy collaboration. Publishing on a quarterly basis, we hope to fill a need for timely information, provocative thought, and inspiration regarding public policy consensus building and collaborative processes and methods in the state of California and beyond.

Regular features you can expect from the Edge include News/Information, Toolkit/Lessons Learned, Challenging Issues/Hot Topics, Success Stories, and Letters to the Editor. In this first edition, our articles focus on happenings and projects here at the Center. Future editions may include but will not be limited to Center submissions. We welcome your submissions of articles, news items, letters to the editor, and graphic art as well as suggestions for improving this newsletter to better meet your needs. Link to our submissions page by clicking here.

This newsletter is one of a package of efforts undertaken by the Center with the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, for the purpose of building the capacity of the state of California to use collaborative methods in service of improved public policy outcomes.

Meet the new old us: The Center’s transformation

In 1992, founding mother of the Center, Susan Sherry, started out with a shoestring budget and a vision of a state agency that could bring collaborative methods to bear on the resolution of protracted public disputes. Over a decade later, we find that while our original name and vision have served us well, our practice has grown beyond our dispute resolution roots.

This year, after some serious strategic planning and no small amount of soul-searching, the organization formerly known as the California Center for Public Dispute Resolution (CCPDR, or, more mysteriously, “the Center”), has become the Center for Collaborative Policy, perhaps still to be known as “the Center.” Our new Mission still encompasses what we have always done, and it allow us to expand in the new directions required by our hearts and those we serve. In the years ahead, the Center will devote itself to increasing the capacity of public agencies and California’s diverse population to collaboratively improve policy outcomes through a variety of methods. For more information about who we are and what we do, check out the Center's website at www.csus.edu/ccp.

Upcoming courses

Graduate Seminar on Collaborative Public Policy-Making
Spring Semester, 2003
California State University, Sacramento
The Department of Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Sacramento partnered with the Center to offer a first ever course at Sacramento State on collaborative policy-making in the summer of 2002. Taught by Center Senior Advisor David Booher, the graduate level seminar Introduction to Collaborative Policy-Making brought together 10 students who together studied the theory of deliberative policy analysis and collaborative policy-making.

A second course, Practice of Collaborative
Policy Making (PPA 296J), will be taught in the Spring of 2003. More information and the syllabus for either course can be obtained at the Department's Web Site www.csus.edu/mppa

Advanced Course on Mediating Land Use Disputes
April 2-4, 2003
Lincoln House, Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Consensus Building Institute (CBI) and the Lincoln Institute are offering an advanced three-day course on Mediating Land Use Disputes—aimed at expanding the number of qualified land use disputes mediators across the country. The course leader is Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT and one of the country’s most experienced public disputes mediators.
While there are thousands of mediators in the United States, very few have the specialized knowledge and skill required to successfully mediate land use disputes. This course offers experienced mediators an opportunity to learn about the special problems associated with mediating land use disputes. This course will be highly interactive, including hands-on exercises that build on CBI’s extensive experience throughout the United States and Canada. Cases include: infrastructure and facility-siting disputes; disagreements over how to manage new development; environmental justice battles; zoning and permitting fights; and discord over the preparation of long-range resource management and land use plans. CBI will ask course registrants to send in examples of actual situations they are dealing with (or hope to mediate) so that the course can respond to their specific needs and interests.

Tuition: $300. This fee covers all sessions, lunches and course materials, including two Lincoln Institute publications authored by CBI staff: Using Assisted Negotiation to Settle Land Use Disputes: A Guidebook for Public Officials and Mediating Land Use Disputes: Pros and Cons. Enrollment is limited to 36.

The registration deadline is March 20, 2003.
Contact the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to register:
Phone: 800/LAND-USE (800-526-3873) or 617/661-3016 x127
Fax: 800/LAND-944 (800-526-3944)
Mail: Information Services, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
113 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: help@lincolninst.edu

Toolkit

The Power of Metaphor: The Elephant Zone
Julie Lee, Center Associate

“Let’s just say it, there’s an elephant in the room and we all know it. “It’s been here since we all began our work together and it will be here ‘til we all finish. The elephant is whether horses will be boarded at the park in the future.”

This bold declaration by the mediator of a public dispute involving 25 people from 9 stakeholder interests was a pivotal turning point for the group. Charged with developing recommendations for an equestrian management plan for a state park, the group could now get to work crafting proposals.

Knocking down the roadblock

Horse boarding was the psychological roadblock stopping the group from seeking agreements. Indeed the conflict around boarding horses was the impetus for convening the group. Having already met three times the group had experienced significant success in uncovering members’ interests. But now the group was starting to draft proposals in small groups and they weren’t getting far.

In enters the elephant…

The elephant was not formally introduced but everyone knew its name, “Horse Boarder.” Horse Boarder became the unofficial guest of honor for the evening. Everyone was packed into the cramped, dark, and cold meeting area that normally served as the visitor center for the Park, so it seemed doubtful that the room could accommodate such a large guest. But the room turned out to have lots of space for the elephant - psychological space. With a new mutually shared friend, everyone’s spirits were lifted. Now, along with the effort they had put into uncovering their interests, they had the bridge they needed to put aside longstanding combative and strained relationships and turn their attention to the future.

The power of metaphor

The elephant metaphor carried a lot of power - some in the group may have imagined what it looked like, its smell, its sound. The group had already spent hours on understanding issues related to the four-legged horse so the elephant was a good stand-in. A few of the horseback riders in the group may have even imagined themselves on top of the elephant walking around the room. But the elephant metaphor and what people did with it was private and not something the group needed to take its precious time discussing.

Getting to work on agreements

Just prior to the elephant joining the group, the mediator had posted a number of items on the wall on large pieces of butcher paper. The items reflected the work that members had agreed on from past meetings- shared values, agreements in principle, areas of disagreement. Certainly the biggest area of disagreement that needed the elephant’s help was whether horses should be housed in the park. With the roadblock named for what it was through the power of the metaphor, folks settled in and got to work for the rest of the evening. The elephant wandered about the room for a few minutes and then left.

Food for thought for other collaborative processes

· Approaching the elephant zone: Each mediation has roadblocks, even a series of roadblocks, so look for them, anticipate them.
· Embrace the roadblocks in creative ways such as a metaphor - the truth will set you free.
· Look for multiple ways to reinforce metaphors such as posting the information on the wall with butcher paper.
· The metaphor can take the heat off the group, including the mediator!

Challenging Issue

Collaborative Dialogue in the Post 9/11 Information Security Context
Laura Kaplan, Center Associate

The Issue

In the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, public officials at all levels of government have been called upon by the President to do some serious thinking about how the information they create, house, and release might affect national security. As a result, significant stores of information that were previously available to the public are now restricted. Organizations such as OMB Watch and the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press are tracking these data restrictions on the federal and state levels. (See the links section below to explore the issue in more depth).

As professionals in the field of public policy consensus building, our work often depends upon the ability of agencies and the public to use mutually acceptable data to craft sound resolutions to often controversial policy questions. How concerned should we be about the impact of tightened information security upon policy collaboration?

What Does It Mean for Collaborative Policy Dialogue? A Case Study

Since June of 1997, the Center has been helping to facilitate a consensus-based public Advisory Committee for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). The Committee’s formative legislation, SB 1916, was designed to help DTSC take a more proactive, preventative approach to curbing pollution. The Advisory Committee has been constituted as a collaborative policy dialogue, inviting key statewide stakeholder groups – such as large and small industry, environmental groups, labor, the environmental justice community, public health agencies and non-profit entities, and sanitation – to the table.

The stakeholder representatives who form the SB1916 Advisory Committee work collaboratively with DTSC staff to develop two-year work plans to guide DTSC pollution prevention and outreach efforts with specific targeted industries in California. The first work plan (2000-2002), designed a pollution prevention outreach strategy for petroleum refineries and automobile repair shops.

While the work plan element addressing pollution prevention in the automobile repair industry has been widely embraced, the initial strategy for petroleum refineries had to be abandoned due to post 9/11 security issues. The original petroleum industry strategy hinged upon creating dialogue between a petroleum refinery and local community stakeholders in three or four California communities. To inform discussion between community members and their local refineries, DTSC staff assembled data from multiple publicly accessible sources to create a user-friendly profile of each refinery’s operations. While this information remains publicly available scattered throughout the original sources, the decision was made that due to security concerns the agency would not release its compiled analysis. Unable to provide the data they judged necessary for community-refinery dialogue, the SB 1916 Advisory Committee decided not to pursue the original strategy for pollution prevention with the petroleum industry. Instead, DTSC retooled their strategy to work with individual refineries and help them dialogue at a refinery-to-refinery level about specific waste stream problems.

Where do we go from here?

The preceding example illustrates that post 9/11 information security measures are having an impact on the methods and strategies available to those seeking collaborative solutions to public issues. On one side of the coin, public agencies are charged with making difficult day-to-day decisions regarding classifying, declassifying, and withholding information deemed sensitive. On the other, as postulated to the author by a DTSC staff person, the post 9/11 climate seems to have had a chilling effect on the willingness of members of the public and advocacy groups to push for the disclosure of information. As in the DTSC case, both agency and public stakeholders may truly desire to work collaboratively; they may equally feel bound to protect public safety through information security measures. All are faced with the dilemma that the same data that can be a critical boon to a collaborative process might also be a useful tool for a terrorist.

As advocates for a process of participatory public policy dialogue, do we as individuals or as a professional field have a contribution to make to the current national debate about information security? What new strategies or adaptations to our current processes may be developed to meet the challenges posed to collaborative dialogue in the post 9/11 world?

Write to the editor to express your views or share examples of how your professional work has been affected by post 9/11 information security measures. A selection of responses will be published in the January 2003 edition. Contributions may be edited for length and clarity.

Links

Read about the reaction of other professional fields to the new information security:

· National Academies’ February 2002 report, Balancing National Security and Open Scientific Communication: Implications of September 11th for the Research University.
· The American Library Association Committee on Legislation’s Task Force on Restrictions on Access to Government Information.

Background links.

Please note: The following links represent the most comprehensive and accurate web-based data we have found on post 9/11 information security, and / or they succinctly highlight some of the controversial issues associated with the recent changes in information security policy. The authors and hosts of the following websites may express opinions that are not necessarily shared by the Center.

· The Department of Homeland Security. Official website of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
· Information Security Links. Federation of American Scientists’ list of federal executive orders, memos, and public remarks related to information security.
· OMB Watch. The most comprehensive listing available of federal and state information restriction actions post 9/11.
· “Homefront Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public's Right to Know.” White paper prepared by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
· “The Information Wars.” September 2002 commentary by The Atlantic Monthly’s Mary Graham.
· “Access to Information After 9/11.” Cautionary argument prepared by Lee Tien, Senior Staff Attorney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Success Story

California Department of Parks and Recreation
Off-Highway Vehicles Stakeholder Process
Laura Kaplan, Center Associate

Context

Off-highway vehicles (OHVs) — including 4-wheel drive / sport-utility vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, dune buggies, sand rails, and dirt bikes — provide a popular form of recreation in many parts of California. The over four million Californians who participate in some form of OHV recreation each year support a $3 billion industry.

OHV recreation has engendered historic controversy in California. Non-motorized recreationists (e.g. hikers and skiers) and environmentalists have concerns about the ecological and noise impacts of the sport. Private property owners near popular OHV recreation areas have concerns about noise and trespass. Illegal OHV activity (including use of non-registered OHVs and OHV use in non-designated areas) creates difficulties for law enforcement officers and state and federal land managers. OHV users are concerned about the increasing density of riders sharing limited OHV-designated lands. Parties to OHV disputes have a tradition of pursuing remedies through litigation.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation’s (DPR’s) Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Program was created in 1971 with the purpose of better managing growing demands for off-highway recreation, while at the same time fostering respect for private property rights and protecting California's natural and cultural resources. This program is currently the largest and most successful program of its type in the U.S., with user-generated funding from vehicle registration fees, fees collected for OHV use at State Vehicular Recreation Areas (SVRAs), and a proportional cut of the California gasoline tax. The program has designated six main SVRAs as well as 21 SNO-PARKS (designated plowed parking areas for winter off-highway recreationists).

In response to the growing pressures of increased OHV use and decreased land area available for OHV recreation, and in light of the historically contentious OHV arena, in 2000 DPR contracted with the Center to provide mediation and facilitation services to support the development of a statewide management plan for OHV use. An Advisory Committee of approximately 60 stakeholders has been established. Members include environmentalists, non-motorized recreationists, OHV users, law enforcement, private property owners, local and state government representatives, and representatives of the OHV manufacturing industry.

The Secrets of Its Success

The Center facilitator of the OHV stakeholder process, Lisa Beutler, has used facilitation “best practices” to create an effective venue for the stakeholder group in order to allow them to experience success with collaboration. She has further modeled and coached participants (one-on-one and as a group) on collaborative techniques and behaviors, in order to enhance their ability to form functional relationships across traditionally adversarial lines and reach consensus decisions.

Notable coaching and venue-creation techniques applied include:

· Reframing conflicts to recognize that purpose of negotiations is to create an optimum program, not to fix a current problem;
· Identification of core issue areas and degree of common ground;
· Introduction of interest-based processes to frame dialogue;
· Identification of numerous data gaps that framed assumptions;
· Establishing multiple methods operating concurrently to resolve issues, such as work teams, scoping sessions, and identification of outside forums with similar goals; and
· Utilization of concurrent processes to resolve some of the group’s issues (i.e. utilization of DPR’s grant-making program as a vehicle for testing, piloting, and implementing the Advisory Committee’s decisions and approaches at various stages of the consensus-seeking process).

The facilitator emphasizes faith in the group’s collective problem-solving ability, the value of having all relevant data “in the room,” and the value of questioning what you believe to be true. She models and coaches staff in this philosophy and collaborative techniques.

In-Group Results

The facilitator has seen the group’s efficiency and turn-around time for work products improve substantially as the group begins to ask itself “the right questions” to enable collaboration. The stakeholder group has changed the original mission of the process in order to continue seeking consensus on items beyond the original charge of creating an optimum OHV program for DPR; it has also expanded the use of “offline” work teams to address numerous issues to which professional facilitators only provide consultation. The group as a whole is now convened primarily in order to reach final consensus around work team products.

OHV Program and Policy Results

DPR’s OHV Program, including its involvement of stakeholders in planning, is being discussed at national level conferences to encourage other states to adopt a similar model. As detailed below, the OHV stakeholder group has had a significant impact on OHV-related policy in California, with the potential for national influence on OHV use, manufacturing, and planning.

The OHV stakeholder group successfully introduced consensus legislation to extend funding for DPR’s Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Program, which was nearing its “sunset date” (the date upon which the program would have expired, barring legislative reauthorization). This consensus legislation, which received no “no votes” as it passed through the California Assembly, was considered by those knowledgeable about the historic OHV controversies to be an extraordinary accomplishment of the diverse stakeholder group. It serves as an indicator of the stakeholders’ faith in the collaborative process, and desire to continue to work together under the umbrella of DPR’s program.

A second legislative package (AB2274) has just been signed into law by the governor. This consensus package includes a sound standard for OHV recreation that will have national impact due to its implications for OHV manufacturing. A third consensus legislative package of proposed amendments to AB2274 to be introduced in the California Assembly in January, 2003 includes guidelines for funding and resource management for DPR’s OHV Program.

The OHV stakeholder group is currently involved in a negotiation to give DPR direction for drafting an RFP for the purpose of identifying a mutually acceptable soils conservation standard. The group is in the process of agreeing upon acceptable qualifications of a soil scientist to draft the standards, as well as what “work products” the scientist would need to create. Like the sound standard above, a soil standard — which would be a valuable tool to guide policy development related to OHV-induced erosion, compaction, or other soil impacts — would have the potential to serve as a national standard.

The OHV stakeholder group has spurred at least two other policy development activities at DPR. In response to questions raised by the stakeholders group regarding how many Californians drive off-road, for what purpose, and how often, DPR has commissioned a new and expanded fuel tax study (expected to be completed in 2004). The stakeholder group provided detailed consensus guidelines and criteria for what would constitute an acceptable study. DPR’s OHV program also undertook an evaluation and redistribution plan for the several million dollars it awards annually for the management of OHV recreation. The stakeholder group helped to redraft the grant program’s criteria, application process, requirements, and evaluation process. When completed the new grant program will become administrative regulations, and may result in new legislation.

The Domino Effect: Spin-off Collaboratives

Due in large part to the considerable success experienced by the OHV stakeholder process detailed above, individual stakeholder representatives as well as DPR have initiated the use of consensus-seeking processes in other venues with other types of disputes. Each successful experience of collaborative problem-solving has contributed to a “domino effect” as both the DPR and stakeholders involved in DPR processes have spurred the use of interest-based problem solving for subsequent policy decisions.

DPR has commissioned the Center facilitator to design collaborative stakeholder processes for Will Rogers State Park to: 1) help negotiate the terms of a lease agreement; and 2) create an equestrian management plan. The charge of the stakeholder group currently working on the equestrian management plan is to make “recommendations to the Director of California State Parks on appropriate equestrian activities for Will Rogers State Historic Park. Recommendations shall fulfill the park’s Declaration of Purpose, provide for public use of the grounds and facilities, respect and protect the ranch’s historic integrity, and interpret the life and time of Will Rogers, consistent with Will Rogers’ values and vision.” In this case, controversy stemmed from the impacts upon the park’s lands and historic structures of boarding privately-owned horses in the park’s stables. The facilitator has employed similar reframing techniques to those used with the OHV stakeholder group in order to turn traditional dispute resolution into an opportunity to build the group’s capacity to collaborate.

DPR has also contracted with the Center to form and facilitate a community advisory board to guide the development of the state’s first urban park, Cornfield State Park in downtown Los Angeles. The choice to operationalize the legislative requirement for an advisory board as a consensus-based stakeholder process is significant; legislatively-mandated advisory boards are often constituted as simple, traditional facilitated feedback processes (where the agency receives comments from diverse points of view, which are taken into account in the agency’s internal decision-making process) as opposed to stakeholder processes in which public and agency think through issues and solutions together. Cornfield advisory board members include representatives of schools; public transportation; a temple nearby the park property; diverse ethnic communities in Los Angeles; the homeless; local, state, and federal agencies; the environmental community; historic preservation and cultural organizations; and the private sector.

Stakeholders from the OHV process are also currently trying to initiate a stakeholder-driven consensus-seeking process to address issues surrounding the shrinking of California’s Salton Sea due to water diversion for industrial, agricultural, and municipal use.

Letters to the Editor

A selection of letters to the editor will be published in each forthcoming issue of the Edge. We invite you to comment on the articles you just read by emailing the editor, or submit articles for publication consideration. Letters and submissions may be edited for length and clarity.

See our submission policy | Email the editor