November Fifth Coalition

Bridgeport, CT

Will Friedman, Alison Kadlec, and Lara Birnbeck of Public Agenda have published a study of Bridgeport, CT. They start the story with the Connecticut Community Conversations Project, a series of public discussions of the type cataloged in The Deliberative Democracy Handbook. They show that the discussions of school reform led to many other such projects; deliberation is now a habit in Bridgeport. Citizens have shown that they are capable of making tough choices: for instance, shifting limited resources from teen after-school programs to programs for younger kids. There is much more collaboration today among businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. The Public Agenda report quotes several business leaders who describe themselves as converts to public engagement, whose willingness to invest in the city has risen as they have gained trust in their fellow citizens. There is also a high rate of direct participation--for instance, mentoring.

Everyone feels that they share responsibility; problems are not left to officials. The School Superintendent says, "I've never seen anything like this. The community stakeholders at the table were adamant about this. They said, 'We're up front with you. The school district can't do it by itself. We own it too.'"

Eugene Decisions
Eugene, Oregon

Several years ago, the Eugene City Council faced an $8 million budget shortfall. The city began working with the Deliberative Democracy Project at the University of Oregon to involve citizens in deciding how to balance the budget. The resulting project, Eugene Decisions, utilized a series of surveys and questionnaires, followed by two sets of community workshops where participants used a booklet and worksheet to generate their own recommendations. Through this process, the city engaged over 1,200 residents in face-to-face meetings, received thousands of survey responses, and balanced its budget for the first time in many years.

Decatur Roundtables
Decatur, Georgia

Decatur is a small city, next to Atlanta, which has experienced dramatic gentrification in the last ten years. After a number of conflicts over land use and other issues, the City partnered with a local nonprofit, Common Focus, to engage citizens in the development of a strategic plan. Early in the organizing effort, Common Focus assembled a community network map of all the organizations and groups in the city; this helped compel other groups to join in. Over 450 people were involved in multiple-session “Decatur Roundtables,” addressing issues such as growth, race, and education. Using input from the roundtables, the city drafted the basic parameters of the plan, and then enlisted 250 citizens to help flesh out the full plan. The final plan won an award from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and continues to guide city decisions in many policy areas. More information.

Community policing circles
Buffalo, New York

Just like in many other large cities, police-community relations in Buffalo have often been tense and unproductive. In 2000, the police department began working with the United Neighborhoods Center, an affiliate of the United Way that serves Buffalo’s system of block clubs, to help officers and residents work together. The result was a city-wide project that involved 600 residents, including over 250 young people, over a two-year period. In neighborhoods across the city, residents met with police officers and lieutenants, as well as other stakeholders, in multiple-session small-group discussions about the challenges to public safety and ways to surmount them. The effort led to security precautions taken by businesses, quicker response times to 911 calls, a renewed commitment to community policing, and stronger police community relations overall.

Kuna ACT
Kuna, Idaho

The population of Kuna, just west of Boise, has grown from 600 to 6,000 in the last decade. After repeated conflicts over issues of growth and school funding, an organization called the Kuna Alliance for a Cohesive Community Team (Kuna ACT) was formed to foster better communication. Whenever a major policy question arises, Kuna ACT organizes an informational forum followed by a series of small-group circle discussions. An average of six forum/circles have been held each year for the last five years. In this way, community input has been gathered on practically every major and minor policy decision facing Kuna. More information.

Neighbors Building Neighborhoods
Rochester, New York

Neighbors Building Neighborhoods (NBN) is a citizen-based planning and community action process that has regularly involved Rochester residents since 1993. City staff work with teams of citizens – one team for each sector of the city – to map assets, create community vision statements, and develop priorities for community action. Roughly 6,000 people take part every year. In addition to providing citizen engagement in the Rochester 2010 Plan, the process supports new partnership and funding sources for neighborhood priorities. Over 80% of the neighborhood goals have been achieved; one particularly notable outcome is Greater Rochester Urban Bounty (GRUB), an urban farming project that harvests over 12,000 pounds of organic produce per year. More information (opens a pdf).

Building Stronger Neighborhoods
San José, California

Several years ago, the City of San José allocated $120 million of redevelopment money into the city’s neighborhoods. This created a unique opportunity to organize coalitions of neighborhoods in 19 underserved areas of the city. Staff organizers worked with existing neighborhood leaders, identified and developed new leaders, and in some cases, developed new neighborhood organizations. The funding was the catalyst to get people to the table, but the ultimate goal was strong organizations with capable and confident leaders. Roughly 500 people per year take part in action committees to develop neighborhood plans. These plans guide all City resource allocations in these areas, affecting everything from sidewalks to community centers. More information.

The November 5th Coalition acknowledges the assistance of the Democratic Governance Panel of the National League of Cities (www.nlc.org) in gathering these examples.

• Community-Wealth.org is devoted to citizen-centered economic institutions such as land-trusts, community development corporations, and co-ops. Some of the projects it describes are very ambitious. For example, community development corporations "have rehabilitated 7,600 homes [in Cleveland] and built 6,300 new ones—80 percent of the new homes in the city."
  


• The Center for Democracy and Citizenship website has many stories and articles on citizen-centered politics, in the research section and links to the Jane Addams School for Democracy, Public Achievement (also at its own site). Check out especially "A Community Alive with Learning" (pdf) on the West Side Neighborhood Learning Community.
  


• The Civic Practices Network is a superb collection of articles, case studies, and policy ideas
  


• The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) has keeping track of "success stories" that are available online In the NCDD Learning Exchange, you'll find links to dozens of dialogue and deliberation efforts that were considered successful by their convenors. They are organized by approach, including Deliberative Polling, Citizens Juries, Future Search, National Issues Forums, Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue, AmericaSpeaks, Study Circles, the Public Conversations Project, and Wisdom Councils, and they include summaries and links to the full cases or stories. There is also a category in the NCDD Learning Exchange called "Case Studies and Stories," which currently includes 26 resources.

• Since 1975, the nonprofit Project for Public Spaces has worked in 2,000 communities in 47 states and 26 countries to improve parks, markets, streets, transit stations, libraries and countless other places, using a citizen-centered approach called Placemaking to design lively, sociable, beautiful public spaces and to revitalize communities. Placemaking often requires a dramatic shift in transportion policy, that puts the priority on places, not on speed and efficiency of travel. In New Hampshire, in a largely rural section of the state known as the North Country, transportation planning and Placemaking have converged to help local residents re-imagine main streets as walkable public spaces where social life and business can flourish. The Department of Transportation (NHDOT) has undertaken a dramatic process in which ordinary citizens and communities will shape its long run strategic plan across the state
  
  
• In Portsmouth, public dialogue has become " a hallmark of community life"
  


• The Concord Area Trust for Community Housing has built 166 affordable units.
  


• The Little River Salt Marsh Restoration Project in North Hampton and Hampton, NH, where people are restoring an ecosystem through a partnership with the federal and state governments, townships, and various nonprofits.
  


• St. Anselm's College in NH is a site for Public Achievement, a collaboration between college students and high school students to address public issues that the adolescents select

• North Carolina Wildlife Federation (a National Wildlife Federation affiliate): A group of local citizens, mostly farmers, organized to stop the Navy from building a landing strip in a sensitive area near wildlife refuge and the coast. Hearings across the state were well attended, resulting in every federal legislator in each district, including Sen. Dole, opposed to the Navy's plans. The citizens powerfully and effectively articulated a different future and desired status of the land under threat.
  


• Conservation Federation of Missouri (NWF affiliate) has developed a Conservation Leadership Corps program for high school and college students that engages young people in policy and advocacy work on behalf of environmental conservation. Students apply for this opportunity and utilize and develop their significant leadership skills in taking action to call for and achieve meaningful conservation policy goals. CFM has successfully developed responsible leadership in young people and several remain engaged with CFM.
  


• Community Wildlife Habitat, Puget Sound: Local communities around Puget Sound have engaged in a civic work project to develop wildlife habitat working with government and business to achieve their community-based goals. Those involved and certified are so committed they are recruiting nearby communities to become involved as well. This project was begun by NWF and is facilitated by NWF, and very much in the "expert on tap" mold rather than an "expert in control" approach.
  


• Women for Sustainable Development: Building Future Leaders: NWF has a program to educate and engage college and graduate student women on sustainable development. The participants engage their communities in projects to further understanding and action on sustainable development and global warming.
  

Port Townsend, WA

During this school year a high school class convened a year-long town dialogue among citizens. Three times they randomly selected ten citizens who met Friday night and all day Saturday, who were dynamically facilitated to evolve consensus viewpoints and present them to a town gathering of youth and adults. Then all formed into small groups for dialogue where it was recognized that most everyone supported the unanimous results.

This experiment with the "Wisdom Council" process was transformative to the youth, to adult supporters of the class, to many of the randomly selected citizens, and to those who attended the gatherings. It's too early to determine if the conclusions have affected policy decisions, but the process has drawn interest from the City Council and County Commissioners for possible expansion. (Center for Wise Democracy, www.WiseDemocracy.org)

King County, WA

Freedom of speech, freedom of petition, and freedom of assembly are hollow rights if people feel unable to be heard. Initiative 24 in King County creates a Citizen Councilor Network open to every citizen. At this time 84,000 signatures have been turned in to the King County Clerk toward the 55,000 valid signatures required to receive a Certificate of Sufficiency to qualify for inclusion in the November 6,  2007 ballot.

This initiative establishes a feedback communication system owned by the people where small groups in homes or workplaces can share opinions on public issues with results posted on a Forum Foundation website for reflection by officials, government staff, news media, and citizens. The program is self-funded (no taxes) and administered by the County Auditor. If
passed, King County will be the first government in the world to use this new Algorithmic Resonance Social Technology. See: EasyCitizenInvolvement.com; ForumFoundation.org