Citizen Participation Committee Meeting Notes

March 10, 2004

Present:

Kevin Biglin, Kimberly Colville, Christine Forde, Jim Manley, Polly McMurtry, Diane Meyerhoff, Tiffany Ward, Lynn Whalen (Chair), Marti Woodman (Vice-Chair) .

1. Housekeeping items

• Kimberly reported on the Champlain ARC-sponsored Transportation Forum in February (a summary is available from Kimberly). The next meeting will be April 8 th at Champlain Vocational Services (CVS) at Ft. Ethan Allen in Colchester .
• Kevin reported that his OpEd piece was published in the Colchester Sun and Essex Reporter . Jim suggested he also submit it to the Milton Independent .
• Christine circulated a list of acronyms (attached) for consideration by the committee. She can print these out on large paper to hang on the wall. Members will review and comment.
• Polly presented “Public Involvement Techniques,” a document from the Dept. of Transportation (http://www.planning.dot.gov/Pitool/toc-foreword.asp). Diane will review.
• Diane will attend the annual conference of the Int'l Assn. of Public Particip. ( www.iap2.org ).

2. Public Involvement Principles (from the Plan of September 2003)

Polly reported that the CCMPO Executive Committee discussed the formation of a Communications Committee (CC) and the relationship between it and the CPC. She explained that communications is concerned about messages that go out to the public, where citizen participation is concerned with messages that come into the organization as well . Communications is a part of citizen participation.

Jim is concerned there are too many committees, since there is also a subcommittee on communications as part of the Public Transportation Task Force. It was decided that we need more information in order to work cooperatively with the other committees.

In terms of the principles, the group decided to keep numbers 2&6 as separate items since there is a separation between participation and communications. Principle one, “promote respect” is an overarching principle and is appropriate to be first and to stand alone. The group will continue to review the principles at each meeting.

 

3. Committee Charge: Goals, Objectives, Deadlines

The group discussed the charge: To assist in the development of a comprehensive public involvement process building off of the adopted Public Involvement Plan (PIP). The focus of the committee's first year of work will be establishing protocols for the review of public involvement activities. It is expected that the committee will work with staff and consultants to devise a meaningful review process that will help to strengthen the CCMPO 's public involvement activities.

The group agreed that defining a meaningful review process that makes substantive recommendations for the strengthening of public involvement activities is our focus. Marti suggested we ask participants to evaluate our meetings to give us useful feedback. Tiffany suggested a survey to ask citizens how they would like to learn about transportation issues. She'll gather examples of surveys that CCTA has completed.

 

4. Public Involvement Project Form

Christine and Polly described the scoping process. Scoping is the process through which a transportation problem and solutions to solve that problem are identified. At a minimum, the public participation requirements are: 1) a Local Concerns Meeting to define the problem with the community; 2) Alternatives Presentation to offer a series of solutions; and 3) Preferred Alternative Meeting to present the recommended solution.  From there, projects move to the design phase.

 

Christine described how the activities of the CCMPO fit together:

 

The group discussed the Public Involvement Project Form. The following should be added:

• Who is potentially impacted? Who are the interested parties?
• How will you reach the interested parties?
• Who are the associations and groups that could be affected?
• Under tools (#6), add: Steering Committee, Association Newsletters, Signage, Postcards, CCMPO Newsletter, Radio, and Telephone Tree.
• Under tools, add a line next to each tool for the group to be targeted by that tool.
• Level of Town/City involvement?
• How will you involve seniors?
• Incorporate a timeline

Diane will work on a revised form for the next meeting.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 3 PM.

 

The next meeting will be April 14th from 1-3PM in the "North" Conference Room.

 

Prepared by Diane Meyerhoff, March 12, 2004

 

Attachment: CCMPO Commonly used Acronyms