Building Bridges Phase II Report 2019 1
Building Bridges Phase II
March 29, 2019
In response to recommendations from the Public Participation Working Group (PPWG),
the City of Boulder initiated a series of workshops to gather feedback and ideas from a
diverse cross-section of community members on community expectations for civic
conversations in Boulder. This effort is called Building Bridges. Phase I consisted of a
series of workshops to gather feedback and ideas from a diverse cross-section of
community members; an executive summary of this phase appears below. In Phase II, a
group of community members synthesized materials collected in Phase I and produced
(1) a vision for public engagement, (2) enduring issues, and (3) a framework for change.
To advance the framework for change, three pilot projects are suggested that advance
the vision for public engagement and attempt to navigate enduring issues (designed to
acknowledge them, minimize them, transcend them, and build capacity to address
them).
Phase I Executive Summary
City of Boulder staff conceived of Building Bridges as a design workshop with the goal of
operationalizing the PPWG’s recommendation to change the culture of public
engagement. A large public event was held in November 2017, where discussion
centered on changing individuals’ behaviors and the city’s practices for convening. A
second workshop was facilitated with the Youth Opportunities Advisory Board, who
emphasized the need for inclusivity in public processes. In early 2018, the city invited
CU’s BoulderTalks (now the Center for Communication and Democratic Engagement, or
the CDE) to collaboratively re-design Building Bridges. Combining the principles of
deliberation and design thinking, Building Bridges set out to build the public’s capacity
for civic conversation.
Objectives
Three primary objectives guided the process design and facilitation:
● Gather contributions on ideal norms for public participation and civic
conversation (to a group of community members for synthesis and development)
● Enact the engagement we seek
● Grapple with our roles as community members in shifting the culture of public
engagement
Process Design
The process as framed by the overarching question: What norms ought to guide
public engagement in our community?
To expand conversation beyond more typical and formal modes of engagement, such as
public comments at city council meetings, participants were introduced to “Boulder’s
Civic Communication Landscape,” a graphic representation of the range of spaces where
public engagement occurs.
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Facilitated discussions gave community participants an opportunity to brainstorm
norms (i.e., standards for action) to guide Boulder’s public engagement. After writing
each norm and sharing in small groups, participants were asked to place their ideas into
themes and prioritize candidate norms through a dot-voting exercise. Themes for
categorization were developed from analysis of the community input offered during the
November 2017 meetings. These themes included: convening norms, diversity and
inclusion, listening, participant mindset, play, trust, and space for new ideas. The next
segment of the process allowed community members to deliberate to surface tensions
and trade-offs, as well as underlying motivations and values associated with proposed
norms. Conversations were facilitated by 18 undergraduates and graduated students
affiliated with the CDE.
Participants and Events
Nine Building Bridges events were held during Spring and Summer 2018:
• Jewish Community Center
• Youth Opportunities Advisory Board
• CU Diversity Summit
• Boulder Public Library
• Boulder Housing Partners: Resident Advisory Council
• First Congregational Church
• New Vista High School
• Mylk House Salon
• City of Boulder Boards and Commissions
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For more information please see the executive summaries, processes synthesis, and raw
data reports available at: https://bouldercolorado.gov/engage/building-bridges
Outreach: Be Heard Boulder and Interviews with Underheard Voices
Be Heard Boulder: The CDE facilitated five discussion forums on the City of Boulder’s
Be Heard online engagement platform in order to hear from more voices on the key
topics that emerged in face-to-face Building Bridges workshops. Forum topics included:
listening, trust, and collaboration.
Under-Heard Voices: To gain a deeper understanding of the experiences and
perspectives of voices that typically go unheard or underheard in the city, the CDE
interviewed two Spanish-speakers, two residents of Boulder’s manufactured home
community, and eight commuters (those who work in Boulder, but do not live in the
city).
Phase II Building Bridges
Phase II brought together a small group of community members, who worked with the
input and synthesis from Phase I. Across six meetings, they co-created a vision for civic
communication, isolated enduring issues to be attended to, and developed working
proposals as part of a framework for change that supports ongoing changes in Boulder’s
culture of public engagement .
Vision
Building Bridges co-developed ideals for what we want our public engagement and civic
conversation to look like. These ideals provide a way to do public engagement better—a
pathway towards the change we seek not just an abstract vision.
- Dialogue. Speaking and listening for understanding.
- Disagreement. Develop capacity for risk-taking and tolerate discomfort evoked
by engaging in disagreement.
- Personal accountability. Honest reflection on challenges to our own
perspectives and biases, and accepting responsibility for the impact of what you
say regardless of intention.
- Power. Mitigate power imbalances to promote inclusive participation.
- Co-creation. Opportunities to share ownership and have an effect on the
process.
- Inclusive. Be intentional to gather diverse voices. Remember that everyone may
have multiple identities that inform interests in unique ways. Ask who else needs
to be in this conversation. Consider frequently under-represented groups such as
young people, people of color, social class differences (including renters vs.
property owners), different ways of thinking (cognitive diversity), and a broad
political spectrum.
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- Receptive & responsive. Seek public input early in the decision making
process and prioritize community ideas. Provide feedback and follow-up. Help
community members understand how decisions are made, especially how public
input is taken up and influences outcomes.
- Accessible. The city reaches out to the community not just expecting the
community to come to the city. Solicit feedback through multiple mediums and
modalities.
- Organized. Set clear expectations for meetings and other public processes.
- Fuller discussion. Spend more time discussing relevant constraints,
limitations, values, and tradeoffs between them to fully explore issues instead of
just debating narrow solutions.
Building Bridges participants did not want to see this vision turned into simplistic rules
to evaluate civic participation. The idea of requiring people to sign a pledge to follow all
of these rules to enter public meetings, for example, was rejected. Instead, this vision
represents the ideals that we aspire to, providing common language to talk about how
we aim to treat each other and what to call out when we fall short.
This vision can be communicated several ways:
- Provide to city council, boards, and commissions as a guiding vision for conduct
during meetings—between members and with the public.
- Provide to working groups as initial group norms that can be adapted to meet the
objectives and members of the working group. In other words, this provides a
starting place that can be adapted to meet the particular needs of different
groups.
- Provide to facilitators hired by the city, asking them to facilitate behavior towards
these norms and note behavior that deviates from them.
- Publicize as part of educational efforts on civic participation in Boulder.
Enduring Issues
In co-developing this vision, our conversations surfaced enduring difficulties in doing
public engagement well. The following list maps some of the tensions present in doing
this work. In seeking change, we acknowledge the dynamics that may make these
changes difficult to accomplish and could call for ongoing management, care, and
capacity-building.
Working against typical behavior. Our vision requires hard work and uncommon
ways of talking together. Human nature may make parts of this vision difficult because
it requires recognizing biases and cognitive short-cuts that too often undermine public
engagement. Some enduring issues stem from socialization, cultural differences, and
bad experiences with public engagement that require work to regain trust.
● Lack of self-awareness. Often people don’t recognize when their own behavior
violates the vision above. We don’t see how our own talk excludes others and
perpetuates bias; of course, I’m not racist. We don’t recognize how our
socialization shapes how we hear and interpret what others say. This lack of self-
awareness means that we need structures other than just personal accountability
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to accomplish this vision while also recognizing that many of us don’t even
recognize that we are part of the problem.
● Out-group negativity. People tend to attribute the behavior of others to
negative motives or individual failing (e.g., they just don’t care) instead of
recognizing how social structures favor some groups over others. We must work
to see how power and systemic forces impact participation in ways that are not
easily visible on the surface.
● Not listening. Too often people talk past each other. People can be
overconfident in their understanding of an issue such that they don’t slow down
to really listen to other perspectives or gloss over what people are actually saying;
they solve for their own problem not the agreed upon problem. People may also
be primed to speak their positions instead of listen to others. This inhibits co-
construction and dialogue because conversations become a set of serial
observations instead of shared focus on a particular issue. Hearing how people
engage your actual contribution is often key to being heard and feeling
understood.
● Power balancing hurts. Making space for underheard voices can threaten
those who have typically had more influence and power. People must sit with the
discomfort inherent within inviting more people into the conversation without
expecting that they behave like me or follow my rules.
● Disagreeing respectfully. Respect for others’ experiences is necessary for
engaging across difference. And yet, if you disagree with them, people often feel
disrespected. Focusing on ‘being respectful’ can foreclose discussion by not
digging into the heart of matter, thereby avoiding conflict and leaving real
disagreement unexplored. Or ‘being respectful’ can be code for particular cultural
norms that are used to exclude others. Without constructive disagreement,
participants often don’t grapple with tensions and trade-offs of issues.
Superficial conversation makes it easier to conclude problems are intractable
(i.e., “everyone is different” so problems can’t be solved due to inherent
differences). How do we design processes wherein people feel respected, yet
make space for necessary disagreement?
● Conflict adverse. Many people fear conflict so they are passive aggressive and
avoid disagreement altogether, or they are aggressive passive, starting with bold
stances on issues that escalate the issue in an attempt to pre-empt the conflict.
Both approaches inhibit constructive disagreement. How do we develop the
capacity to handle the discomfort necessary to engage in disagreement?
● Echo chambers. Most participants recognized the value of engaging with
community members who look, think, and act differently than themselves. Yet
they also acknowledged that it can be easier to engage with people who share
similar opinions. Boulder’s demographics can make it difficult to interact with
people with opposing viewpoints. The current climate of organizing into interest
groups that represent proponents and opponents can further exacerbate these
tensions. When people make an effort to engage different others, the interaction
may be confusing or unsatisfying, even result in reinforced polarization (e.g., that
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conversation convinces me I’m right). How can we move beyond our own echo
chambers without perpetuating division? How can we get people to broaden their
thinking to include the best interests of the community not just their own?
● Vulnerability and accountability. Building trusting, strong civic
relationships is more complex than a set of sequential steps that can be
universally applied--it requires accountability, humility, and being open to
hearing difficult truths. Robust participation requires a willingness sit with
discomfort and to try out (or try on) ideas and consider their implications
without fear of judgement. How do we allow people to be vulnerable while also
holding people accountable (which often feels like judgement)?
● Polarized positions (i.e., proponents and opponents). Cultivating the capacity
to sit with discomfort means shifting from thinking in terms of “either/or” (i.e.,
tendency towards polarized dichotomies; either my position is supported, or it is
denied) to thinking in terms of “both/and” (i.e., tendency towards fluid dialectics;
aspects of both proponents and opponents positions are represented in policy
action) or “to what degree” (i.e., tendency towards compromise). How do we go
about cultivating this capacity?
● Assuming good intentions. Assuming good intentions is often considered
part of establishing collaborative relationships across different perspectives. And
yet, assuming positive intentions is difficult when people hold opposing
viewpoints that are quite personal, for example, when someone’s position seems
like an attack on your personhood.
● Distrust. Often building trust takes time and effort to develop rapport between
people. Yet trust can be easily damaged, sometimes by a single action or moment.
Re-establishing trust is difficult work and it can be hard to even know where to
begin. How do we cultivate better tools for building and re-establishing trust
while moderating tendencies to lose trust quickly?
● Facts vs. Opinions. Distinctions between facts and opinions are a source of
tension. On one hand, distinctions are necessary for establishing the legitimacy of
arguments. Misinformation and manipulation undermine our ability to make
good community decisions—we need a strong evidece base. On the other hand,
facts can be used by skillful people to build exclusionary knowledge hierarchies.
This can crowd out other community members and dismiss community values,
experience, and other ways of knowing. How can we manage tensions around
facts and opinions to avoid potential problems?
Style differences. Inclusive public engagement requires designing meetings that fit
multiple ways of speaking, learning, and knowing. Sometimes these style differences are
grounded in different ideas about what counts as good public participation and cultural
differences. Below are important dimensions of difference:
● Logic vs. Emotion. When asked to discuss ideal civic conversation, some
people want it to be grounded in logic and reason-giving. Yet emotions also
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matter for understanding the significance of issues as well as individuals’ diverse
experiences. How do we manage the expression of both?
● Talk and Action. Some community members are frustrated that too much time
is spent dialoguing and gathering input without ever moving towards action. Yet
moving quickly towards action breeds distrust and the perception that decisions
are already made, decision-making is top down, and opportunities for
collaboration are missed. How can we better manage tensions between talk and
action so we avoid distrust and frustration? How do we move deliberately so that
processes are faster overall?
● Open-ended vs. Clear plans. Some community members seek more
opportunities for open-ended meetings where there is chance to explore a range
of community issues and set the agenda for conversation. Other participants
have called for clarity around the goals, purpose, and outcomes of any
engagement process. Most likely, the meetings would appeal to one group and
would alienate the other. An obvious, partial solution is to explore a range of
engagement strategies. How else can the city manage desires for open-ended
engagement and clear, concrete processes?
● Orderly versus Informal. Orderly, structured public engagement is necessary
to uphold fairness and transparency, create mechanisms for accountability, and
ensure deep listening. And yet, structures can formalize conversation in ways
that preclude opportunities for co-construction, co-learning, and establishing
common ground, as well as making participation more intimidating for the
public.
● Stakeholders vs. Publics. Some processes try to focus on the needs and
concerns of the most impacted individuals--what can be called a stakeholder
approach. Yet this can mean that not all members of the public are treated
equally. When is disproportionate influence warranted?
● Articulate. Public engagement and governance structures tend to advantage
certain ways of being articulate. These standards tend to favor dominate ways of
speaking (e.g., deductive argumentation) while discriminating against other
cultural forms of expression (e.g., testimony, narrative, greeting). As we seek new
structures, the repeated reliance on talk and speaking needs to be remembered.
How do we make space for people who are less apt to speak in conventional
ways?
Falling short. Democratic ideals like transparency, inclusion, legitimacy, and voice are
normative ideals that we strive for but cannot always be reached in practice. How can we
communicate about these difficulties? How hard should we work to reach the ideal?
● Representation fatigue. As the city attempts to engage under-heard voices,
they often turn to the same, established connections and contacts, asking these
groups and/or individuals to speak on behalf of a larger community and their
interests. How can city officials effectively reach out to under-heard communities
without burdening them?
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● Transparency vs. Accountability: Community members can be critical of the
city for not being transparent in their decision-making processes. Yet in some
instances, full transparency is not possible. How do we cultivate a public
recognition of the limitations of disclosure while also getting city officials to
acknowledge that they are aware of concerns and assure the community that a
process is being followed (e.g., we can’t share the details, but we are in a
process)? How do we maximize transparency when possible?
● Underheard voices. As the city tries to convene more inclusive conversations,
disproportionate time and effort can be spent trying to reach under-represented
groups. What are the limits to how many resources should be spent?
● Process pushback. When public engagement falls short of the ideals (and it
often does), community members don’t always have mechanisms for expressing
their frustration. Too often people either shut down and keep their experience
private or they leave the process altogether. Either way, the community hears
fewer perspectives on an issue while distrust grows. How can we create better
ways of understanding how people experience public engagement to reduce
alienation and fatigue?
● Fake public engagement. Too often the public has reasons to question the
legitimacy of public engagement. Maybe public engagement is “fake” and only
providing cover for a decision that has already been made. Or endless meetings
serve to tire people out so that community members eventually give up. How can
legitimacy be established in the face of these fears?
● Agenda setting. Sometimes it seems like two few people control the agenda—
what issues get attention and action. Some big thorny issues never get systematic
attention while other issues get instant attention. Community mobilization and
political attention can favor the same voices.
This is a very long list of enduring issues—quality public engagement is difficult work.
Yet this list does not need to be implemented as a long list. Instead, it can be
communicated in some of the following ways:
- Enduring issues can become the topic of community dialogues were community
members can explore what makes an issue so thorny and how it might be
perceived differently between community members
- Educational materials can highlight select enduring issues, including what makes
them difficult in particular civic spaces (e.g., council meetings) and how these
difficulties might be better managed
- Educational materials can highlight some of the tradeoffs between different
enduring issues—how attempting to address one issue might actually make
another issue worse (e.g., how addressing power imbalances could mean
increasing exclusion of some groups in order to address power inequities)
- Educational materials can highlight some of the relationships between enduring
issues, mapping reinforcing relationships between them (e.g., addressing out-
group negativity can help increase personal accountability)
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- Enduring issues can be provided to contractors and facilitators running public
engagement, asking for attention to key enduring issues for a particular process
- Training provided for community members serving on council, boards, and
commissions about key enduring issues in their meetings and how these
difficulties might be better managed
- Introduce the idea of style differences to help get people to understand the
dynamics at play during a meeting and how these differences can be recognized
as a strength not a weakness
- Frame issues under consideration for particular processes, including situating a
given meeting within a broader conversation. In some cases, acknowledging some
of these enduring issues can be used to focus the conversation instead of having
the conversation need to surface all of these issues.
Framework for Change
The vision articulates ideals for public engagement and the enduring issues map some
difficulties in reaching those ideals. The framework for change identities key strategies
for how to make these changes.
The PPWG suggested piloting various projects for changing public engagement. This
framework takes up this recommendation by offering four key areas and a variety of
ideas under each. Then three specific pilots are offered with specific plans that articulate
how the pilot is designed with the vision and enduring issues in mind.
Tools for Navigating Existing Systems
• Problem Statement: Community members find existing structures to be inflexible
and inaccessible. They do not necessarily know how decisions are made and how
they can be involved in the process. ‘Hidden rules’—taken-for-granted
knowledge about how existing systems work—make existing modes of
participation less accessible to some members of the community.
• Proposals:
o Map Existing Systems (3)
Expand “Boulder’s Public Participation Landscape,” possibly
creating a more detailed infographic/graphic representations to
demonstrate the network of public participation venues available
o Art Exhibit (3 + 1 <3)
Make public participation more intriguing (yet educational)
through interactive art exhibits that educate the public about
existing systems
o 3D model of how an idea goes through council (1 + 1 <3)
Account for the dynamic, iterative, and likely non-linear decision-
making processes by which an idea becomes an ordinance
Modeling can include how problems are define, input is solicited
and taken up, analysis is undertaken, etc.
Magnifies the PPWG’s 9-step decision model
o YouTube videos (2)
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Online content provides opportunities for education about how
existing systems function (e.g., in’s and out’s of speaking during
open comments)
o Educational materials (1)
Education materials that explicate that finer details of specific
forms of participation would make these often more rigid forms
understandable and more accessible.
• How the proposal upholds the vision and speaks to enduring issues:
o Seeks to make existing public engagement modalities and mediums more
accessible through education initiatives, while making existing
organizing principles clearer. Public education not only clarifies where
to get involved but also makes taken-for-granted knowledge about how
existing systems work more explicit. This enables more people to equitably
participate in public conversations.
o Helps community members understand how decision are made and public
input is solicited (receptive and responsive). Cultivating this
knowledge is especially important for supporting diverse sites for civic
interaction and collaboration, and, in the process, bringing more voices to
the table (inclusion).
o Speaks to strains associated with formal, structured conversation
(orderly vs. informal). Education can help explain the reasons for
existing forms of public participation (e.g., public comment at city
council), which can make them less intimidating and alienating.
Complexity of Inclusion
• Problem Statement for existing systems:
o The enduring issues point to many barriers to inclusive public
engagement: out-group negativity, representation fatigue, underheard
voices, and more. For many Boulderites, these complexities of inclusion
are invisible—they aren’t felt and understood. This makes it very difficult
for community members to fully grapple with the complexities of changing
the culture of public engagement and makes them more likely to push
back against efforts at inclusion that seem unfair.
• Proposals:
o Educational materials for understanding complexity of inclusion (6)
City 101: 4 session series about the inner-workings of government –
could include barriers to participation and service/equity lens
Potential Racial Equity trainings offered to the community
Definitions of “community” either in total or on a case-by-case basis
“How you fit in” chart that goes two ways: what do you need from
The City and what does the The City need from you? (What You
Own/How to Help Take Care Of It)
Enduring Issues document – how do we share in bite-size pieces?
Communication/listening skills
Brave spaces education – how to create one, how to
participate/sustain one
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o Experiential education to build cultural competency (1)
Comfort Soup and other Library collaborations
Blind Café
Restorative justice practices
Hunger banquet
Live storytelling
Poverty simulators
Role play other points of view
Power role play simulators
• How the proposal upholds the vision and speaks to enduring issues:
o Proposed activities and events build capacities for increased dialogue for
understanding and engagement across difference and discomfort
(disagreement) by focusing on issues where community members have
different perspectives and experiences.
o Honest reflection on the complexities of inclusion cultivates personal
accountability—asking the public to grapple with challenges and
contribute to solutions
o More inclusive participation is fostered when community members and
officials are able to recognize the diverse identities and experiences that
are present and valuable to our community.
o Understanding complexities of inclusion is necessary to accomplish more
equitable sharing of power
o Proposals further address enduring issues under the category of “working
against typical behaviors,” specifically lack of self-awareness, out-
group negativity, bad listeners, power balancing hurts, and echo
chambers. Our shared vision cannot be accomplished without bridging
divides that polarize our civic interactions.
o Proposals also recognize the challenges of engaging underheard voices
and managing representation fatigue when bringing these voices to the
table
Being Heard
• Problem Statement: Community members feel there currently aren’t enough
opportunities to “be heard”—to interact with decision-makers and community
members in ways that foster dialogue and perspective-taking, promote
inclusivity, and give the public a voice in decision-making. Existing systems for
participation are not structured for interaction, leaving community members
feeling that when they do participate they speak but are not heard.
Disproportionately, existing systems focus on addressing decision-makers,
making it difficult for community members to listen and learn from each other.
• Proposals:
o Deliberative dialogue: Deliberation brings together a broad range of
stakeholders to consider relevant facts and values from multiple points of
view, to listen to each other while critically thinking about various options,
underlying tensions and trade-offs, and to develop capacity for
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collaborative action. Deliberation seeks to move beyond partisan, position-
taking politics that can dominant existing decision-making processes.
o Pilot dialogue for understanding: Whereas existing public engagement
practices prioritize information-sharing and influence that forward
particular policy outcomes, dialogic approaches elevate the goal of mutual
understanding. Community members seek more opportunities to dialogue
with each other and again insights from others’ experiences and
perspectives.
o Neighborhood leadership: Develop stronger geographical representation
by cultivating neighborhood leaders who are connected in place and
committed to building community where they live who can then reach out
to other leaders across the city.
o Techniques to get people beyond their own dislikes and to major concerns:
develop techniques that help people speak to understand as a practice
before positions.
• How the proposal upholds the vision and speaks to enduring issues:
o Elevates the need for dialogue, while supporting inclusivity and fuller
discussion among community members and with decision-makers
o Provides space for engaging in respectful disagreement while grappling
with competing values and perspectives on issues.
o Builds capacities to move beyond bad listeners, conflict adverse
participation, echo chambers, and polarized positions, which make
engagement adversarial rather than productive
o Cultivates trust by building rapport with the community through mutual
recognition, acknowledgement, and understanding
o Addresses critiques of fake participation by elevating the voices of the
public in decision-making and creating opportunities for the community
to consider the range of proposed actions and be part of co-creating
processes and practices
Transparency: Feedback Loop
• Problem Statement: Community members often do not receive adequate
feedback as to whether and how their input was received by city officials, and how
public input shaped decision making. At worst, people are dissatisfied when
decisions do not mirror their own positions because they see no other evidence of
influence beyond passing the position they advocate for.
• Proposals:
o Design a feedback loop: Create a complimentary set of communication
strategies that validate public input was received, demonstrates that
decision-makers were receptive to the public input they received, and
speaks to how that input will be/has been taken up. If input cannot be
integrated into decision-making, an account of why this is the case is
given.
Predicated on individualized responses and active listening
strategies
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o Publish dissenting opinions: When policy decisions are made, council
members would provide reasons for why they are voting for or against a
particular proposal. Providing dissenting opinions offers the public an
account of the factors that influenced decision-makers.
o Develop a transparency model: More broadly conceived, a transparency
model expands the notion of a feedback loop to help the public understand
the available means of engagement, criteria for decision-making, and the
ongoing analysis and public participation processes. When limitations
exist, accounts are given as to what information can’t be provided to the
public.
• How the proposal upholds the vision and enduring issues:
o Address the perceived lack of receptivity and responsiveness from
city officials to help community members understand how decision were
made and how community input was prioritized.
o Demonstrates how engagement and decision-making were organized
o Supports fuller discussions by making limitations and constrains more
explicit to the public and encouraging more interaction between decision-
makers and the community
o Promotes conditions for co-creation—demonstrating that public input
had an effect on the process
o Fosters accountability when full transparency in information sharing is
not possible (accountability vs. transparency), ongoing distrust of
public engagement processes, and increased inclusivity of public
engagement to support decision-making.
A design mindset
Shifting the culture of public participation requires being willing to take risks and
innovate around strategies for engagement while reflecting on how these processes
forward the vision. The city has been experimenting with innovations around public
engagement since late-2017, but not all experiments have been visible to all segments of
the population, nor has the city shared lessons learned and next steps. Because the
public is unaware of experiments, they may think nothing is changing.
During our meetings, we became aware of a number of ongoing experiments and pilots
that the city is doing, such as:
Community Connectors
Telephone Public Comments
Chats with Council
Neighborhood Office hours
Pop-up engagement
BeHeardBoulder
C-MOB (Coalition of Manufactured home Owners in Boulder)
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We applaud this number of experiments while also stressing the need to gather data
about what was tried and the results so that the community can collectively learn from
this experimentation. Innovation would be best supported by adopting a design thinking
mindset—reflecting and iterating on the process over time.