Chief executives session
106
FROM ADVERSARIES TO ALLIES: GOVERNMENT-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
description
Transcript of Chief executives session
FROM ADVERSARIES TO ALLIES:
GOVERNMENT-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
Department of
STEPS TO PARTNERSHIPS
Do No Harm:• Don’t distract the community from its own
priorities.• Don’t force the community into the
bureaucracy’s silos.• Don’t take people’s time without showing
results.• Don’t make the community dependent.• Don’t undermine the community. Follow
the Iron Rule.
Remove Government Barriers to Partnerships:• Centralized decision making• Cookie cutter programs and
regulations• Inaccessibility (location, language,
hours, runaround)• Bureaucratic red tape• Know-it-all attitude
Build Community’s Capacity for Partnership:• Offer leadership training• Assist with outreach tools like translation• Work with associations of all types• Provide forums for networking• Highlight community strengths• Offer non-meeting options for engagement• Share stories of successful communities
Neighbourhood Service Centers
Neighbourhood Matching Fund
Ballard Neighbourhood
Carkeek Park
Eastlake Neighbourhood
Phinney Neighbourhood
Bradner Garden
SODO Neighbourhood
Fremont Neighbourhood
Neighbourhood Planning
How planning differs through matching fund:
• Community initiates planning• Community defines scope of work• Community hires planning expertise• Community provides volunteer match
Columbia City
Value of community-driven planning:• Implementation happens – plans don’t sit on the shelf
• Resources are multiplied – government resources leverage community’s
• Appropriate development occurs – respecting unique character of neighbourhood and culture of community
• More holistic and innovative solutions result
• A stronger sense of community is built
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Faced with this dilemma, I worked with the Mayor and the rest of the City Council to devise a three-pronged implementation strategy. The first prong recognized that the City was already spending most of its budget in the neighborhoods but not necessarily on the communities’ priorities. The challenge was to move from business-as-usual to responding to neighborhood plans.
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The City of Seattle agreed to add approximately 50,000 households over the 20 years from 1994 to 2014. In order to do this, the City’s Comprehensive Plan, entitled “Towards a Sustainable Seattle,” identified a set of “urban villages” that were anticipated to receive the most growth. The City then asked the people in each village to create a neighborhood plan that would address anticipated growth and the community improvements necessary to ensure healthy, pleasant places to live.
38 neighbourhood plans: over 5,000 specific recommendations
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Their valuable time, talent, knowledge, and perspective resulted in 38 plans, each reflecting the special character, needs, and opportunities of that neighborhood. They contain more than 5,000 specific recommendations: public art, playground, neighborhood identification, cultural facilities, streetscapes, trees for streets and parks … The completed plans were submitted to the City’s Strategic Planning Office for review and then to the City Council for approval.
Over 30,000 Seattle residents involved
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Neighborhoods came through in a big way. In each planning area, a committee was formed, with subcommittees for key elements of the planning process, such as land use, transportation, etc. About 20,000 people, many of them new to community activism, participated in meetings, “alternatives fairs,” writing, exhibit construction, and even songs and skits. The result was a 20-year vision for their neighborhood along with recommended actions that would accomplish their goals.
“We’re letting the genie out of the bottle
and we’ll never get it back in.”
— Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice, 1995
Presenter
Presentation Notes
“We’re letting the genie out of the bottle,” said then-Mayor Norm Rice, “and we’ll never get it back in.” How right he was!
Existing resources were refocusedSix sector managers
Community stewardship groups
Interdepartmental teams
Presenter
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We refocused City departments and their resources by hiring six sector managers to work with community stewardship groups and with decentralized, interdepartmental teams; fold plan recommendations into departmental work plans, budgets, and CIP programs; identify opportunities for collaboration with other partners such as the School District, WSDOT, and Sound Transit; and leverage resources from the community and the private sector.
$464 million in voter-approved bond and levy measures:
2000: Parks: $198 million
1999: Community Centers: $70 million
1998: Libraries: $196 million
Presenter
Presentation Notes
This major reorientation of City government is perhaps the most significant achievement of the neighborhood plans. The second prong of implementation strategy was to generate additional resources by placing plan recommendations on the ballot in the form of bond and levy requests. Three major components of most neighborhood plans are supported by voter-approved ballot measures ...
Tripled the Neighbourhood Matching Fund
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The third prong of the implementation strategy was to triple the Neighborhood Matching Fund from $1.5 million in 1998 to $4.5 million this year. The Neighborhood Matching Fund supports neighborhood-initiated projects by giving neighborhood groups (formal and informal) cash awards to match community contributions of cash, volunteer labor, or donated good and services. The Fremont Troll was one of the first Neighborhood Matching Fund projects, back in 1998.
A GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Other Examples of Government- Community Partnerships:
• Official recognition of neighbourhood associations: Portland, Oregon
• System of district councils and city neighbourhood council: Dayton, Ohio
• Block organizing: Lawrence, Massachusetts• Citizen councilors: King County, Washington• Online participation: Minneapolis, Minnesota• Decentralized interdepartmental teams: Toronto, Ontario• Community-driven planning: Golden Plains, Australia• Participatory budgeting: Porto Alegre, Brazil• Leadership development programs: Indianapolis, Indiana• Neighbourhood summits: Cincinnati, Ohio• Community Empowerment Centers: Taiwan• Big Society: England
HALLMARKS OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS:
Place-based
Strengths-based
Community-driven
