PI Works! 2011 

You won't want to miss the seventh annual regional conference sponsored by Cascade Chapter of IAP2. This is the Pacific Northwest's premier event for training and professional development in the            fast-evolving world of stakeholder engagement and public involvement.

Timely topics by seasoned professionals in a stimulating, interactive format. Plenty of time for networking and fun at one of Oregon's most scenic and enjoyable training venues. Registration includes lunch and dinner on Thursday, plus morning and afternoon snacks.

IAP2 Members $265.00        Non-members $300.00

Join IAP2 USA

Your registration includes breakfast, lunch and dinner on Thursday, and snacks and beverages during sessions.

To pay by check, please mail a check payable to Cascade Chapter IAP2 to the attention of Kate Parker, MB&G, 707 SW Washington St., Suite 1300, Portland, OR 97205

Hotel reservations: Please call the Riverhouse at 541-389-3111 to reserve your room at the special rates of $109 - $129 (includes breakfast). http://www.riverhouse.com/index.htm

Guest Tickets for the Awards Dinner at 7 p.m. on June 9 will be available for purchase at the door for $35.00 by cash or check payable to Cascade Chapter of IAP2. Please contact Sheri Wantland to reserve a guest dinner.

 

IAP2 Core Values Awards to be presented for outstanding stakeholder engagement efforts in the Pacific Northwest.

Refund policy: If you register and cannot attend, you may send a colleague in your place OR receive a refund minus $25 processing fee if you notify us BEFORE June 1. 

Register Now! 

 

Session Summaries

"Metro Hires a Reporter & Other Outreach Innovations" Keynote by Jim Middaugh, Communications Director for Metro

 

"Power of Purpose: Knowing why and when to do public involvement"

Carie Fox, Principal, Fox Mediation

Jeanne Lawson, Principal, JLA Public Involvement

Enjoy time with two prominent practitioners as they explore public involvement and invite your ideas to improve the practice. A clearly articulated purpose is the cornerstone of any good public process, but poor communication and lack of clarity leads to delays, frustration, and opposition. Decades of experience prompt broader thinking about how we can continue to create better ways to engage people in decisions that affect them. A recent literature review of outreach theory and broad participation in public decision-making found there is room for improvement to involve more people, more effectively. You can become part of the answer in this inspiring and highly interactive session.

 

Dam Gates: Communicating risks, actions and responsibilities

Amy Echols, Assistant Chief, Public Affairs, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District

Erik Petersen, Operations Project Manager, Willamette Valley Projects, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District

Aging infrastructure is a priority for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which must upgrade thirteen aging dams upriver of Oregon’s population centers, those quiet sentinels that provide hundreds of millions of dollars in flood protection every year. This session explores the complexities of communicating about large-scale infrastructure issues, consistent internal and external communication, the challenges of describing complex flood reduction systems and engineering to lay audiences, planning and implementation based on evolving engineering assessments, and the very long timelines of large infrastructure projects.

 

Citizen Engagement through Applied Community Forums

John Spady, Citizen Councilor Coordinator, CivilSay.org and CommunityForums.org

John Blakinger, Groundwater Citizen Committee Chair (Deschutes/Klamath Counties, OR)

Citizen engagement techniques and tools used by Kind County’s Countywide Community Forums will be refined during the session for use in groundwater protection in Oregon’s South Deschutes/North Klamath counties. Among the previous hurdles: an excess of nearly incomprehensible scientific information; many affected property owners don’t live in the area and can’t attend meetings; paternalistic government told citizens the solution; dysfunctional town hall style meetings had grandstanding, booing, and police security; a previous failed process led citizens to overturn County policy.

 

ODOT leaps into the blogosphere: Willamette River Bridge

Jyll Smith, Public Information Representative/Major Projects Branch, Oregon

Department of Transportation (ODOT)

Suzanne Roberts, Public Involvement Coordinator, Edelman

ODOT was actively using Twitter and YouTube, but it took a highly visible project in the activist community of Eugene-Springfield to prompt creating a blog. The award-winning blog quickly became the “go to” information source and friendly voice of the project. Readers especially like the visual story telling of photos and artist renderings that are not feasible with traditional media but work smoothly in the blog format. We’ll share how we made the business case and how to marshal and manage a state agency-owned blog, from overcoming limited resources to moderating comments and choosing topics.

 

Outreach/Inreach: Is staff onboard?

Jeanna Hall and Sheri Wantland, Public Involvement Coordinators, Clean Water Services

Clean Water Services’ public involvement philosophy, award-winning Stakeholder Engagement Process and best practices provide the template for effective public participation for projects and policy development. Nevertheless, we find it is sometimes as challenging to engage internal staff and decision-makers as it is to engage external stakeholders. Let’s talk about our experiences and yours in getting project managers to support authentic outreach and public involvement for better decisions and results.

 

Meet LOIS: Branding Lake Oswego Interceptor Sewer

Jeff Selby, Citizen Information Coordinator, City of Lake Oswego

The LOIS “brand” helped the City of Lake Oswego’s public involvement process by using marketing and branding principles normally used to sell products and services.The LOIS Team created a memorable brand that helped “sell” the idea of this major public works project to citizens and business owners. Learn about LOIS branding tools and take part in facilitated exercises that will explain what a brand is, how major companies use their brands, and how to apply those techniques to civic projects and improve your public engagement work.

 

BPA's high voltage superhighway

Maryam Asgharian, Public Affairs Specialist, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)

BPA, the Northwest’s primary wholesale power provider, spent the last two years on its largest ever public involvement effort to site a new high-voltage electric transmission line. Our story, including the planning process, course corrections, and key lessons for the future, will add value to other infrastructure projects. We will view interactive mapping developed by BPA to address questions from thousands of landowners, review the comprehensive outreach and comment database that tracked individuals, their comments and our responses, and see websites created by citizen groups to support their causes.

 

Public Involvement Pitfalls!

Tony Faast, Director, Cascade Outreach Institute
Doug Zenn, Principal, Zenn Associates

An analysis of common and not-so-common facilitation and public involvement errors that get in the way of productive group process is the focus of this session. Doug and Tony will combine their years of experience to enlighten and challenge participants in overcoming PI errors using an interactive learning scenario that allows discussion around dozens of tips and tools of the facilitation trade. A segment on how to avoid the Top 10 Missteps in public involvement will encourage participants to contribute their expertise to a discussion of public participation pitfalls that can be avoided.

 

Battle over Portland’s open reservoirs--the untold story

Tim Hall, Senior Public Outreach Coordinator, Portland Water Bureau

In the wake of 9/11, the Portland Water Bureau sought to cover aging, open reservoirs for both security and water quality. They had the support of neighbors, they thought. But a small group of neighbors who prized Mt. Tabor reservoir’s park-like features waged an effective campaign to kill the project, they thought. Witness how the Water Bureau’s public involvement missteps and politics defeated expectations; neighbors and the general public were misled by false but convincing information; inconsistency and confusion bred public mistrust; Bureau leadership ignored the potential opposition to the project; and much more.

 

Should I Friend the Mayor? Problems in new media

Kalin Schmoldt, Public Involvement & Information Technology Specialist and Eryn Deeming Kehe, Senior Project Manager; JLA Public Involvement

Public involvement professionals already face many practical challenges when trying to use online new media tools, but may not be aware of some of the theoretical and legal issues facing public discourse as it transitions into the virtual world. Can we reconcile new media with public meeting and freedom of information laws written for old media? How should we be using free-form, fast-paced new media even if it is incompatible with public discourse rules and laws? How can new media help us rethink and improve the use of “old” media tools? Political junkies familiar with the work of Jürgen Habermas and his notion of the “Public Square” are encouraged to attend!

 

Survival strategies for highly emotional issues; moving from public anger to acceptance

Penny Mabie, Senior Associate, Enviroissues

Susan Hanson, Community Affairs Coordinator, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT)

This session zeroes in on tough projects we are more likely to encounter as economic pressure mounts and citizen expectations grow. The Aurora Bridge Suicide Fence project provided a safe environment for discourse and involved everyone from policy-makers to affected loved ones. ODOT’s new Public Involvement Plan template helped defuse public anguish over the Oregon City/West Linn Arch Bridge Rehabilitation Project, a two-year closure of a historic community treasure that is the gateway to a struggling commercial district and the only bicycle and pedestrian crossing of the Willamette River for 20 miles.

 

The Oregon Kitchen Table Project

Wendy Willis, Interim Director, Policy Consensus Initiative (PCI)

PCI and a group of committed Oregonians developed the Kitchen Table Project to reinvigorate democracy in Oregon and around the country. Their innovative, forward-thinking plan to establish a Citizen Cabinet will engage Oregonians with their elected leaders and give decision makers access to high-quality information about the opinions and values of Oregonians. Via the Citizen Cabinet, thousands of Oregonians will learn about public issues and give meaningful feedback to decision-makers through online questionnaires framed by leaders, vetted by a well-respected bipartisan committee, and finalized by public opinion researchers.