We have two items up for uh discussion today.

Um both of them are briefings, but before we do that, um afterwards it's our intent to move into it's uh into closed session uh for discussion of uh pending litigation, I believe, correct?

No, property uh property, right?

Property uh discussion.

So um I'd entertain a motion to move in closed session following to the clerk if you call will Commissioner Tilgore President Commissioner Robbins, yes.

Commissioner Asassi, Commissioner Purdue.

Yes, Commissioner Belchak, yes, Mary Legrand.

Yes, and I think Commissioner Kilgore, you didn't mean to say you're abstaining, right?

You meant yeah, you meant yes, you said present early.

Like I'm here.

Yes, yes.

You're not doing a just in a mash on us.

No.

Um city manager, if you want to um take us away.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners for being here, and um glad everybody was able to safely uh make it.

Uh today we have very light cow agenda with two briefings.

I'll see up the first one, and the second one will be a follow-up from the discussion we had at last city commission meeting, but with uh so much emphasis on uh international affairs, we often get asked to um take policy actions on things that uh beyond our ability to influence or decide.

But one of the things we can do internationally is develop relationships directly, not directly with the state governments in other countries, but with other cities through cities programs, and we have been uh doing that subnational diplomacy.

Uh Luke Canfield has been uh the lead from our office in coordinating with our city partners.

You have uh improve the uh funding support for sister cities in last year's budget, and today we wanted to uh provide an update.

All right, thank you, City Manager.

Good morning, Commission.

Um we uh get so much done in Grand Rapids through partnerships, and uh Sister Cities really is a story of two important types of partnership between the city and others, of course, between us and the other cities, and you'll hear more about them in a moment.

And the city commission, your predecessors have authorized each of those relationships over time and then helped to sustain them as city managers said through funding support.

So there's the important uh partnership with the cities, but then we also have a model of partnering with a nonprofit organization, Grand Rapids Um Sister Cities International.

It's a multi-decade partnership.

It's been led by very capable people uh over time, and uh the three current uh members of the executive board of that organization are here today.

So uh Catherine Baker is the uh president, Emily Smith is the vice president, and Kelly Joe uh Peltier is the treasurer, and so we're happy to have them join us today.

And uh we we will have some exciting news that is part of the upcoming briefing.

And uh I'm gonna turn the presentation over to uh Catherine Baker to walk through the slides and then we'll answer any questions you may have to.

Good morning, my friends.

Thank you so much for having us.

We are thrilled to be here to represent Grandapid Sister Cities International.

We have a number of slides this morning.

We will be flying through them.

That's roughly 10 uh 10 slides with actual content, uh, but uh many additional slides for resources for anyone um tuning in as well.

So what we'll be we'll be covering today or this morning is just a little bit about Gronapid Sister City International, GRSCI, as we call it, mostly the why, why this is important, where and who, what's next for our strategic growth, and then how you can support.

And I'll uh also save time to answer any questions.

So just looking at our mission statement, you might be familiar.

We are a 501c3 nonprofit uh organization, all volunteer led, whose mission is to build and sustain these relationships between the city of Grand Rapids and all of our respective sister cities.

Why is this important, especially right now?

We are actually a local activation of a larger movement called Sister Cities International, which is based out of Washington DC.

It was established by President Dwight Eisenhower after World War II.

And even all of you are so important.

What this initiative really sought to do was to place peacekeeping and international diplomacy back into the hands of our community and of our people to remind us that you don't have to be an elected official or an appointed governor.

You can just be a regular person as some of us represent we're regular people.

Oops.

These relationships represent the diversity and uniqueness of our community.

We also represent a board of directors, and with our board of directors, these directors represent committees.

So even the names that you see, the volunteers, there stands behind them about 10 to 15 individuals from your districts or your sectors who also represent our communities and own these relationships.

We want to put some faces to these names and the programs that we're part of, so you can see that there's such richness in our community.

So what's next for Gron Rapids Sister Cities International?

We are expanding with your incredible support.

We've actually been able to make strong gains in our international partnerships with relationships we've already identified.

You know that we are already friendship cities with Nepro Ukraine.

This formed or established at a really unique time, right when the war broke out, and we received several asylums.

We also have a new relationship with our uh friendliest neighbor, Canada, and we have started the inquiry city there.

A little bit about these cities.

Uh, you probably know all these data points, but one of the really fun things about these relationships are predecessing mayor, Mayor Rosalind Bliss established this as a friendship city after uh years of support again with the war in Ukraine.

We have the former US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, who is from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and this is such a joy to be represented on that level.

You might also ask why Vaughan Canada, Canada's a vast place, and why Vaughn specifically established as an inquiry city by this is a mouthful, Canadian consulate representative, agent general Earl Provost.

His name is Earl Provost, but all of those things are titles.

Vaughan is the fastest growing municipality in Ontario, and it also serves as a similar economic hub, much like we experience in West Michigan with Grand Rapids sort of being that leader.

We also are similar in manufacturing and transit, in affordable housing and responding to housing crises.

And we have started this relationship already in 2023.

And so we are so grateful that many of you have already supported with your letters, with your willingness to join in conversations.

And as you can see, we have already had a really wonderful time building these exchanges, relationships and programs.

That's what our mission of GRCI is all about.

We've had three trips back and forth with Canada.

It's a little harder right now, as you might understand, to get to Ukraine, but we have welcomed several Ukrainians into our community, and so we are grateful for your support there too.

How can you support as our commissioners, as our city leaders, you can authorize and affirm these existing partnerships and support and continue to support our international communities?

This is an especially appropriate time when we are being iced out and we are also being iced out.

And so we just want to acknowledge that this is a really time a really sensitive conversation, but it's also a wonderful opportunity to express your confidence in our communities here in Gron Apeds.

What do timelines look like when we establish these sister city or friendship city or inquiry city partnerships?

So if you look at these as a step line, the first step always begins with community interest.

We um we do take leads, we do take references, um, but we really rely on community support.

So these are cities and communities that have been backed by our Japanese community members, our Italian community members, our Polish community members, a Ghanaian, wonderful, wonderful uh people and residents here in Grnopeds who are committed to making these possible.

We ask them then to organize amongst themselves.

It's really fun.

Uh, and they they figure out what it is could be their business case.

And what a business case refers to is simply a reality in which it invites us to sustain these relationships beyond one person.

So one person might have the idea, but we need to make sure that Gronopid's this is a mutual benefit for our community as a whole.

So that's what we ask.

We are now in the next steps, and so we are sort of this precursor.

You will be having additional conversations.

You'll be welcoming different members of our Ukrainian and Canadian communities who will present their quote business case to you as to why we should move this forward.

And we're asking you for your support and for your ratification of these relationships.

Then the final steps, you'll see a little infinity sign.

That's because again, the relationship goes straight back to the committees, straight back to our community members to make sure that these relationships are sustained through programs, whether it's learning languages, culinary arts, economic businesses, growth, um, and they sustain it uh throughout.

So that brings me to our point.

Vote yes on citizen diplomacy, not today, but all every day um here forward.

Um we don't have anything for you to vote on today, but we want your um to thank you for your support for GRSCI.

I personally am so grateful for all the events that you've attended, the programs you've been a part of for hosting.

Hosting is such a big deal.

We want um when we invite people to our community, we want them to see the best, and you are the best.

So thank you so much for your support.

I and now we will take any questions that you might have.

Before we have questions, let me again thank uh Sister Cities uh partnership and Catherine for her leadership.

I also want to highlight one of the things we try to do is forge a closer relationship between our sister city program and this countywide welcoming initiative with Kent County.

And there is mutual support now uh from that office.

And the other thing I want to thank uh sister cities for doing is as we celebrate America's 250th, there is an international inclusive component of that.

And the declaration of independence, I believe, is being translated as the many languages that are known in our county.

So the only time I've ever read the declaration is in English.

Uh the only language I've ever read it is in English, so that will be very interesting, and hopefully there will be readings all throughout the county of that in various languages.

So I really appreciate their effort.

Thanks.

Uh colleagues, any questions?

Uh Commissioner Purdue.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you, friend.

Uh, could you talk a little bit more about the business case?

I've never heard of that aspect of sister cities before today.

Yes.

So we we call it a business case, but what it refers to, Commissioner Purdue is the sense of if someone has the idea or they are from a particular community in the world, so you might um I'm from South Korea, right?

And so I might have this idea to have a Korean sister cities, but is it sustainable beyond one person?

Is it sustainable beyond one family?

Is it sustainable in the business community, in the educational community, in our economic community, um, all of the different communities that we represent.

And so we call it a business case just because that's the language that SCI uses, um, but it can refer just to a simple sense of sustainability and main maintenance of the relationship beyond just a primary season into the further further years.

So, how are we growing together?

The other reality, because this is a great conversation, is that some sister cities, it will feel like we're the little sister and we're gaining um education from our bigger sister cities, um, Gangnam Gu specifically is 11 million people.

We are very lucky to be in partnership and conversation with them.

Um, and also we have little sisters, um, and so Omihachaman is uh a little more rural than uh than Gangamgu would be, obviously, and so um how can we help support them as well?

And so that business case looked like we actually have sent um brewers being Beer City USA.

We've actually sent brewers to the community of Omihachamon to help them understand those industries, uh, best practices, uh, and so it's been a really fun way to build exchanges around this business case, um, just identifying the ways that we can grow, um, our community relationships can grow, and also our global relationships can grow.

Thank you.

And thanks to the board for all your work and your volunteerism on there.

Thank you.

We all have full-time jobs, and so we are so grateful that you have made time for us.

Yeah, so I have I have said before that I certainly this is it's great, and it's and I'm and you know you go to any other city and and you know this is a global thing.

You know, you had to go to go to the city hall in Glasgow, and you can see all the all the cities that Glasgow is a sister city with, or right down in the front in the in the lobby, just like they are here.

Um and it is uh I think good and important to like remember that we're part of uh uh a global group uh that humanity is in fact global and not not simply limited to the humanity doesn't stop at 28th Street.

Um but I I do um I do hope that in the future we can consider um what we might call similar cities um very seriously, and so I think that the founding documents of the sister cities was sort of an i uh uh uh built on a notion that you know if you do exchange cultural exchanges and and person to person diplomacy that that's got value, and of course it does.

But I think it's also true that um cities that are similar to Grand Rapids are cities that we are likely to learn um a lot more from potentially and click with a little better.

Um it's hard to transpose lessons from downtown Manhattan necessarily to Grand Rapids.

Uh it's a lot easier to transpose lessons from cities that are about our size and have similar challenges.

I mean, if Miami has a wonderful bike lane uh infrastructure, hard to see how that relates when there's you know an extra eight inches of snow I had to shovel this morning.

Um so if I'm looking at bike lanes, I want to look at a city that's got real winters.

Um if I'm looking at housing challenges, I'd like to be in relationship with a with a city that's had real challenges uh figuring out how to help people who are unhoused.

Um so I I hope that in the future we can start thinking like where are cities that not only can we build person to person relationships with and um and I'm not sure that the I uh putting the business thing to us to uh to one side.

I think that we're in the business of building a great city and learning from cities that are doing the kinds of things that we struggle with, I think is real opportunity.

So I would love in the future for us to consider, for example, a city that's really um worked through cycling things.

Uh and I know that uh we have significant ethnic populations in this town that are German, that are Polish, that are Dutch.

Um, and I think that that cultural resonance can also maybe lead us to find some cities that are doing interesting things that we would like to consider, replicate, maybe learn from, but that also have some uh cultural and ethnic ties into a lot of the traditions and groups that we have in in the city.

So um looking for a city, for example, that really is doing good work on bicycle infrastructure, multimodal transportation would be exciting.

So just throwing that out there for future ideas.

Uh Commissioner Belchak.

Um so on behalf of Sister Cities, does that mean you're volunteering to start coordinating that?

I'm just kidding.

Um, as a citizen.

Um I just wanted to say thank you for this.

I love getting um the updates from sister cities and you know, encourage people to visit you at your website, go to your events.

Um I do think it's important that this is all volunteer led, and it is something that everyone can participate in at some level.

Um and just the idea that we're connected through social media and all the the things that have changed since the original founding of Sister Cities International.

I think it's important and the fact that we're living in maybe uh some of the most um developmental times for what the new world will look like if we want to embrace humanity together.

So um thank you for all your work and look forward to continuing to have not only to support but also to see what improvements we can be making.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And our next briefing.

Yes, uh, we're gonna continue the conversation on community engagement.

Last week uh we had a preview of the website that had taken place, and uh we actually had intended to have this as part of it, but we will be mindful of the time and uh additional consideration we wanted to get to this.

I know there's been a lot of discussion around this dais about engagement in a variety of levels, whether it's from um infrastructure to public safety to even how we um make people aware of what's happening uh city hall and stuff.

Um I'm very pleased that the staff has been highly responsive to the feedback that we've gotten uh from the commission and the public.

And so I'm I'm very pleased that the staff has been highly responsive to the feedback that we've gotten from the commission and the public, and I've we've highlighted a few of those strategies enhancements, and I'm glad that we're here today to hear from our staff.

And today it would be Miss Raleigh Mukovich that will be leading the presentation.

Good morning, everybody.

It's good to see you.

Andrea Riley Mukovitz, and I'm your community engagement manager.

So today I'm delighted to introduce the community engagement framework.

This framework has been almost three years in the making.

So my goal for today is to provide a high-level overview of the framework and discuss the next steps of implementation, and then I'll hand it over to David and Kate who will provide a couple of updates on our engagement efforts.

So first, um, why create a community engagement framework?

Where there has been ample engagement, this is the city's first official community engagement framework.

It was created to provide standardization and consistency.

Where this framework offers shared practices and values, it does so through an iterative and relational approach.

It approaches engagement as collaboration.

It is process focused and people centered.

It identifies shared values and practices.

It was created to communicate the why of public participation to community to clearly explain what we as city staff can and cannot do, the role of community in public participation, and the impact community input can have on a project.

As an organization, we need to communicate that we have many approaches to public participation that depend on a variety of factors and manage those expectations to the public.

The framework provides a toolkit on how to communicate these options, practice consensus building, and how to communicate empathetically when there is disagreement.

Where staff have already begun to test and implement the framework.

There's an expectation that departments will implement the framework into their work in a way that reflects their initiatives, their capacity, and services.

So in front of you today is the process map that I'll talk about later.

But to give you an example a sense of what's in the entire framework, our process map is a visual tool for both staff and the public.

Provides significant detail and options on how to implement an engagement effort.

So I want to begin by first talking about the process of designing and testing the framework.

So before developing the framework, it was necessary to understand both staff and community perceptions and experiences of community engagement and request input and guidance on both content and implementation.

So under Inform and Involve, you see here a list of community partners under different kinds of groupings here.

And so for this section, I asked for input and feedback based on their past experiences of what successful and meaningful engagement felt like.

So to understand this, I relied on staff for their technical and content expertise at all levels.

I developed a group called the Community Engagement Collective, which is comprised of engagement specialists across the city who come together once a month for professional development.

Their expertise has guided the framework and tested it on efforts such as Fair Housing, Neighborhood Summit, Recycling Education, our Car Share Program, MLK Lodge, and Emergency Preparedness, to name a few.

Lastly, our values leads provided input and tested it for internal work groups to ensure that the framework echoes what occurs in our trainings and process improvement efforts.

So within Scan the Field, many municipalities have community engagement frameworks.

So one component of designing and testing this framework was to research how these organizations practice community engagement.

So I presented at these conferences here to receive feedback from fellow practitioners and studied frameworks to identify common themes.

Additionally, the framework's values and practices draw from academic research, professional studies, and community organizing models.

This framework reflects both the locality of Grand Rapids and professional discussions related to community engagement.

So the framework is comprised of four segments.

And so I'm going to begin with these guided questions to highlight the broader purpose of each segment of each segment.

So within proactive relationships, the guided question here is whose expertise, experience, and perspectives will contribute to this project.

The goal here is to ensure that we have the appropriate audience to interact with and to understand who will be most impacted by the effort.

Within clear engagement expectations, our question is how do we clearly and consistently communicate the impact of community feedback we'll have on the project and the process?

And our goal here is to identify not only what kind of participation is needed, but how that participation will support the goal and outcome of the effort.

Within thoughtful engagement experience, our question is what is the intended purpose and outcome?

And our goal here is to design a meaningful public participation effort that meets the purpose and the outcome.

And within shared learning, the main question is how can we apply our learning to improve to improve future projects?

Here, the goal is to communicate what was learned during public participation process, how it impacts decision making, and what can be learned to develop more meaningful engagement for the future.

So here's the process map.

You should have gotten a very big thing of it as well.

It's humongous, but I like that size.

And so this is the visual tool that I was explaining earlier, and it depicts engagement as a life cycle.

For the city of Grand Rapids, we understand engagement as iterative and intentionally cyclical.

And so I'm going to go through each parts of this segment now.

So within proactive relationships, the focus here is partly project management by organizing a work group.

It also focuses on scanning the field to understand the ongoing conversations around the topic to best identify the audience for public participation.

To practice proactive relationships is to understand context.

Within clear engagement expectations, the work group begins to identify the purpose and the goal of engagement.

Within the work group, there needs to be shared agreement and understanding.

The shared vision leads to how they will communicate with the public and identify how the public will find meaningfulness in participation and what kinds of feedback may be needed to support any decision making.

To practice clear engagement expectations is to have shared language, purpose, and manage expectations.

Within thoughtful engagement design, this part focuses on implementation.

Now that the work group knows its purpose of public participation and what it's hoping to receive from community, it's time to develop a strategy to design the event and implement.

By this point, the impacted audience and the staff should know their roles and the impact of the engagement we'll have on decision making.

To practice thoughtful engagement design is to curate a meaningful experience for a specific audience to participate in a way that is reflective of the intended purpose and outcome.

So within shared learning, this segment here, staff are evaluating the input received, determining how it will impact decision making, and preparing communications both internally and externally.

Here we are seeking to understand if we got the information necessary from the public to guide decision making and how we will communicate decision making.

In this part, shared learning is also an opportunity to request informal informal feedback from community partners and work group members on how to collaborate for the future.

To practice shared learning is to be transparent about what information was received, how it will be used, and what was learned in the process.

To summarize, the City of Grand Rapids engagement framework is an iterative process.

What this process map illustrates is that the city will approach engagement by centering people, relationships, and understanding the nuanced process of collaboration.

We will utilize shared practices, it will occur as a toolkit and not and not as a rinse and repeat.

Because of this, we often emphasize to staff that the life cycle of engagement is much more interconnected than what is shown visually.

We encourage staff to be flexible, agile, and community responsive.

So I'm going to talk about a couple tools in the framework as well.

So one of the resources in the framework is the threshold of engagement, and this is within the clear engagement expectations.

The threshold is truly a tool to communicate collaboration and contributions.

It's designed to provide shared learning among staff and community and communicate the intended outcome of the engagement.

So within Inform, this is the lower part of the threshold because the goal is to either educate or to communicate.

The city may or may not request feedback, and if we do, it may have low impact on the decision making process.

So examples of past and ongoing efforts are our emerging developers lunch and learn, commission night out, or the property tax seminar.

Examples of feedback are a post-meeting survey that's requesting feedback on the event and its quality, or requesting lived experiences so city staff can continue tailoring our services.

Whether it is technical expertise and policy that direct decision making, such as planned infrastructure initiatives, community feedback may inform or guide the city and focus on lived experience.

Within Involve, the goal here is to request input or feedback that will have moderate impact on decision making.

Examples can include our deer management effort, where we did a public meeting and circulated a digital survey, our fire department strategic planning, where they held multiple meetings with different groups and then requested feedback on their current plan as well as their future one.

It could also be our upcoming zoning ordinance or our food scrap efforts where feedback will focus on a very specific topic for decision making.

Within Co-Create, we co-create because the city has a project, time and resources that can center shared decision making and collaboration.

Co-creation may occur on both the effort and the process.

Often the timeline is flexible and the scope allows for broad feedback to be narrowed and refined.

Participation will have a high impact on decision making.

Examples can include our community master plan, neighborhood summit, or the CAP.

It's important to emphasize that there is not a morality to this threshold.

One is not a gold medalist in engagement if they are consistently doing co-creation.

Instead, selecting the level of impact should be done with intention.

It should reflect the purpose and the goal of engagement while balancing the needs and interests of the community.

So how do we do this?

So this tool here is designed to guide staff and work groups to determine which threshold to select.

So under audience and purpose, our guided questions are who is the intended audience and what is the purpose of public participation?

Within capacity and resources, our guided questions are does the impacted audience have interest and availability?

Does staff have the capacity and resources?

Within timeline, is the timeline flexible?

And can it be adjusted based off of what was learned during public participation?

Within knowledge, what knowledge is needed by the group to make a decision?

How will that information impact the process or the effort?

And are there technical requirements that need to be prioritized?

And lastly, policy.

So our next steps.

So as I've shared before, the city has been testing and learning various aspects of the framework for over a year.

I actually just learned today that our first training is completely filled within 48 hours, so it's very exciting.

So, but we have more work to do.

So EngageGR is our public participation platform that's supported through public input.

And this is our tool to communicate with the public as well as digitally engage, including survey circulation.

So our staff have been using this tool.

The communications team is currently working with departments to develop a departmental specific plan on using the platform.

And since we are in the rollout and implementation stage, multiple trainings are being designed that cover the high-level aspects of the framework as well as application.

There will also be a dedicated training for leadership to support staff through the engagement process map.

Lastly, let's look towards the future.

So by next year, we can expect that the city will more consistently utilize the language and practices of the framework, specifically the threshold of engagement.

And also there will be intentionality on closing the loop on engagement efforts.

So thank you for listening to my portion, and I'm going to turn it over to David.

Good morning, Commissioners.

I'm just going to give you a very brief update on a couple of initiatives that you're familiar with, but before I do that, I just want to recognize the amount of work that Andrea's put into this, like she said, she wrote essentially an entire book by hand.

So it's been a it's been a labor of love and uh and she's done an outstanding job.

Um so uh that being said, let's talk about commission night out.

So just to give a brief little bit of history, uh, you know, pre-pandemic um, you know, the engagement portion of commission night out was conducted very much in a predominantly open house style, and then it was paused uh through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Um, post-pandemic coming out of that, we additionally resumed our previous practice of an open uh uh of uh open house style, um, but it evolved to include more targeted and and uh specific engagement activities, in part because we have uh we have Andrea on staff now, and she was able to help advise departments on how to do that.

And it's been very, very successful, and in fact, it's been so successful um that it has now outgrown uh our current um CNO the time frames in which we have and the the desire on the part of staff to really deeply engage on specific topics, uh just it isn't a match any longer.

So, what we're going to be doing is we're going to shift to a service delivery model.

So departments that have front facing operations that regularly provide service to um uh to our residents will still continue to participate um in in a little bit maybe of a the time frame may truncate a little bit.

Uh we're still leaving us the option to do targeted, more informed style engagements, and as Kate will talk about hopefully briefly in a moment, uh we're gonna do we're gonna test this model uh in March with our next upcoming um one by doing a construction kickoff.

Some of you might recall last year we did a big construction engagement uh at the beginning.

Uh this will not be quite that.

This will be more to inform the community of what's been going on, what we and what to expect for the construction season.

And that'll give you an idea or a flavor of where we're going with CNL.

Um we still, though, will be shifting and conducting larger engagements independently uh and doing those out in the community.

So it's not that we're going to be doing less engagement, in fact, we'll probably be doing more, uh, and they will be more substantive and deeper in in scope and nature.

And then just very quickly, will I have your attention?

The Commission Enhanced Pilot, uh, just to you know to remind you, we did extend the pilot through the end of the FY.

Um ward one actually will go out tomorrow.

Uh so we have all the materials from our partners at C at Seaforth PR, and we'll be uploading that tomorrow.

Uh Ward 2 will go in February, Ward 3 in March, and then repeat again until the end of the fiscal year.

Um that currently consists of award newsletter, award vlogs.

Those have been updated we've uh uh a little bit, and we've also taken some input from you both you all and the community on content.

Um and so you should see something a little bit different, but still very familiar uh over the over the next few months.

And in the future discussion portion, you know, we're going to be collecting feedback again, both from you and the community, and then uh through the budget development process, we'll have to determine the future of the program, its evolution and refinement.

So that's all I have.

So I will now hand it over to uh Ms.

Bearns.

All right.

So in the context of this uh engagement framework, we thought it would be good just to reference to the ongoing work we've had for a while now about right of way uh community engagement improvements, just so that the commission and the public had comfort that these things have been working in parallel.

So while the framework hadn't been published, um we had been getting the advice and support of Andrea Riley Mukovitz and uh Jennifer Van Horsen in the project team all along.

Uh so using some of the principles that um Dr.

Riley Mukovich just went over with you, using some of the language uh so that we uh are very much kind of in the same stream with what we are trying to do organizationally with community engagement, and really a lot of the same underpinnings that caused us to start this process improvement are what you've just heard about.

It's just um a different time.

People get information in a different way, people have different expectations about how information comes to them.

It's a much more of information comes to me, not that I seek information in certain locations, and and uh I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that we are gonna 100% solve that um issue with the improvements that we are making uh because we do have to use certain channels, just we have there will always be some I think some friction in that process of transferring information from the city to the public and back and forth.

Um but we uh saw some of those same things that caused us to launch these improvements.

So just a quick update, and um certainly we could come back at a different time to go into more detail.

But last year we really focused on uh how we shared information in the inform terminology for those um corridors that were going to be under construction.

So last year was really focusing on the construction period information.

How are we getting information to impact its stakeholders?

Where was going to be sort of one stop shop for the most current information about any particular project?

How could we provide uh higher level of uh communication connections for those um people that were directly on the corridor impacted, so they each uh received a direct line that they could call if something wasn't playing out the way we had expected it to, so that we could solve problems quicker in the process.

We also piloted some different ways to communicate with the traveling public.

So it's it's relatively simple to say, hey, a project is coming, let's do mailed notice, let's talk to the neighborhood association.

It's a little bit harder to get the people who are maybe just gonna drive through that corridor once or twice.

So we tried some different things with electronic signage and putting signage out earlier so people could plan.

So uh that's really where we focused last year.

We are going to continue to use those tools that worked well moving forward, and this year kind of focusing on how to uh operationalize those ideas so that we use those tools uh repeatedly in a way that's efficient for us and takes advantages uh takes advantage of the improvements that landed well last year.

Um and as uh Mr.

Green noted for Commission I Dout, we'll be using in March, we'll be using that as one of the ways that we try to to communicate to a broad group of people what to expect this coming construction season so folks can plan ahead and plan around those things.

Um for the design period engagement, that's really where we're kind of starting um that process now in more in more earnest.

So we have a couple of projects that are in design now, and uh what we have seen as common themes, all the same things we just talked about, layer on to that sort of the time between when we start engaging on design and when we actually hit construction and how are we keeping those anticipated changes fresh in people's minds because it is just a it is just a municipal reality that we design something and it can take years to get to the place where it's in our capital stack fully funded and we're able to get the shovels out there, and so we need to find ways to help people anticipate that.

Uh and we need to, I think one big thing we've heard a lot about is we come to that design process with a lot of information.

So especially when we're doing a big street kind of rebuild, we come with information about crashes and safety.

We come with information about uh traffic volumes and speeds on that corridor.

We come with all of the design uh templates and vision that is created through area specific plans through our vital streets um guidebook and all of those things.

What we've heard a lot from the commercial corridors is that there's a lot of questions about the information we have about parking, uh, and I think changing concerns about parking and customer convenience in today's sort of retail market in particular.

Um, one of the things that we're doing from an engagement improvement perspective is what can we gather similar to all of those other priorities around what we know about parking.

So making sure we're coming with similar levels of understanding about what the current experience is so that we're starting kind of at the same level of information as the stakeholders that we're engaging with.

Um and so that's uh something that we're working on now in terms of our engagement improvements in the design period.

So expect to be able to update the commission more as we move forward on these improvements in particular.

Can't forecast everything we're gonna come up with in this process improvement, uh, but know that we're still very much focused on this and uh within the language and terminology and expectations of the engagement framework that was just shared with you.

Uh, then just a quick note on the fiscal committee agenda today.

There uh was a request for three additional staff people uh that would in part help create some capacity to continue to meet these public expectations around engagement.

Uh so one additional staff person in the planning department that would be dedicated to supporting our vital streets and capital improvement projects.

Uh, really, as we are finding these improvements, uh, a big piece of that is making the connection with people, cutting through the noise of all of the ways people get information and making that face-to-face connection and being a resource that we where we can pick up the phone and answer questions or provide support, and we really just need more man hours to be able to provide that level of service.

So that was one ask, and then two economic development department positions were requested.

Uh, one that would be focusing on providing additional support for our corridor improvement authorities.

That's been something that has been in line with the commissioner's focus areas for quite some time, uh, and again would create additional capacity to help support those corridors through these major construction projects and help with that goal of keeping the changes that might be coming with future capital projects above the radar for those corridor improvement authorities so that as they do projects and think about ways to invest in the corridor, those things are gonna stay well aligned and and maybe some additional support for marketing and other things that can happen during construction so folks can be can prepared and have support uh with us walking alongside them in that sort of economic development component of the impacts of construction, and then the second position uh really creates capacity actually in our tax incentive program for the most part, uh, but allows us to have a little bit more capacity for some cross training and backfilling when needed.

So, again, to be able to continually uh provide enough uh support and contact for businesses that may be impacted by some of these projects.

So just wanted to touch on that briefly.

Great.

That's not one question.

Thank you.

Thanks for the overview, all three of you.

Congrats on writing another book, Dr.

Andrea.

I was gonna say, I I don't know what number you're at, but um three say it, say it loud.

Um so I I know this was something again, this has been an evolution.

We talked about it when we talked about the website, really kind of looking at communications overall.

Um of the questions that I had, and I appreciate you saying there's no sort of like the gold medal, it's you know, all engagement is important.

Um, and I also really appreciate because I think maybe in the past, engagement met.

Well, if I tell you what I want, that's what's gonna happen, right?

And so it's resetting what is that relationship and what are the expectations.

Um, so I really appreciate this and had some good um examples of times where we've we've um invested.

I was also thinking um, because I what I didn't hear on here was our stand like not our not our standing committees, but our boards and commissions that we have throughout the organization.

Um, you know, obviously we met with appointments today, and just thinking about what is that engagement look like and how can we put that also opportunities with our liaisons, um, many who might be involved with other projects that are noted.

Um, but I was reflecting on two in 2006.

I became I be sat on the first city board.

I sat on the civilian appeals board, and I really didn't know what to expect um at that time, and so I also think just differing bodies have different charges.

So wanted to highlight that because that's a really um important way that people engage with the city, and then um my other note was um really when we look, I'm just thinking back about the master planning process, and we just um had a whole presentation by some of the consultants that the planning department is working.

So it obviously needing different expertise, so we would bring people in.

Would then that contracted what's the expectation um is do those external facilitators then is part of it, they would understand what this framework is and then embed that into the specialized work that they do.

Yeah, so I think it's gonna depend on the department.

But actually, I'm working with the zoning ordinance team and those external consultants, and so um, like I said, it depends, but we do have some past practices where those consultants are using the framework.

I'm working with them.

The car share program is another example, and I think it's really my philosophy is is that if they're interested, let's onboard them if they think that's possible, let's do it.

But I like to leave that up into the department and the project lead to make that decision.

Okay, all right.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Um, and then my second part of the question was probably more for for Miss Barons about um just some of the right-away pieces.

So thank you.

Um appreciate this kind of circle back.

I think one of the things that we heard kind of consistently, or even we hear when we get things resolved with 311 is that it might be a subcontractor that created a certain scenario that was um not meeting the level of standard that we would have, whether it's something being left or something not being cleaned up or things like that.

So I just wanted to highlight that again because you know, what is that?

You know, you've got that person you have the contract with, but what does that look like in the relationship?

Um, appreciate the comments, you know.

Um, Miss Barons and a number of other city staffers met with a group, um, which was maybe like a pre-community engagement um for one of our neighborhoods in the second ward a few weeks ago.

And so, you know, some of it involved developers and sort of you know what people are doing, things by right.

Um, and so I understand certainly understand you can't force things, but how can we continue to inform sort of those that are either developing in the city or wanting to come to the city about you know what is the level of standard that we want to have, so more of that carrot perspective and just kind of showing what's possible.

Um, so I want to um highlight that.

And then lastly, um, it's I think it's been more KDL, but thinking about the Grin Airput's public library, you know, especially during times like this where people, you know, maybe a library provides refuge or you know, all the parents out there.

Sorry, you've been stuck with your kids for this many days.

I don't have kids.

Um, no, just um, but it's been it's been a challenging environment, right?

And so um, I'm just wondering like what that relationship with the library is.

You have so many people who are coming in from our city into our libraries, and is there a way to maybe do some of that informing with the library?

What does that relationship look like?

Particularly, I think because they're in different neighborhoods in construction, but certainly any other communication opportunities.

Thanks.

Yeah, so uh just with respect to all of the people that do work in the right of way.

So our right of way engagement process, we we really intentionally are focusing on the in terms of what tools to use on our projects.

Part of what we're focusing on, what we're doing this year to translate what we learned during construction period last year is to translate some of that, what needs to go into our specs, what needs to go into our requirements for contractors and subcontractors.

Once we we wrestle that down, we will be talking to the departments that issue permits to others to do work in the right of way to see what might be appropriate for us to require in permits versus share as a best practice.

Um but that will be sort of a phase two of implementation.

So uh certainly we'll see that through, but it will be a little bit further down the the line in terms of what we expect.

Similarly, um, with respect to planning and private development and just their level of engagement with the community as they think about what their private design projects will be.

The planning department is as you know, and we talked about with the the second war group the other day, does a lot to encourage developers uh to reach out early and to set up meetings, but certainly again as we roll this forward and we learn more, we may be able to still things down into more of a best practices uh thing to make it more clear what we think our public expects to help developers be successful.

So that'll be more that we do down the line.

Uh, with respect to the library, I think David had some responses, but to the extent that they are impacted by construction projects, that will be another um body of work that again we do quite a bit of work up front for those institutional um those institutions that are um in the project zone, schools, for example, we do a lot internally behind the scenes to make sure we understand how what they might be impacted externally, how to push that out to those customers are parts of the improvements that we've made and will continue to make.

But David Yeah, and I was just gonna say that the the libraries have always been a great partner to us um and vice versa.

Uh we have a great working relationship, and so we've even had instances in the past where I think uh the NCS a few years ago, they were willing to provide a QR code at the desk so that people that didn't have access to a computer that wanted to fill out the digital survey could come in.

And so that's something we we would do as part of that audience and that planning of the engagement is determined if that if that's an audience and a location um or a method in which you know the department might want to use.

But yeah, that that's certainly something we've done in the past.

Mayor.

Yeah.

Um can you bring up slide eight, go back to slide eight.

I wanted to um place emphasis on the point where Miss Barnes landed on staffing resources.

The majority of what we do as a local government is uh somewhere between that inform and involve area.

And there are a lot of things that we do informing the public that has to be done in order for the city to run.

The more we move to the co-create, and you can see some of the examples around those are pretty long-term strategic things, just as community master plan, and even uh some of the things that are involved, uh like the deer management program, we we almost got to the point where we were co-creating with the neighborhoods.

That becomes very, very staff intensive.

And those efforts that require us to co-create need to be well planned in advance because staff will need to either reprioritize existing work or we will have to resource it either with external contractors or with additional staff.

And so whenever there are um emerging issues in the immediate response is oh, let's create a task force.

Task force typically fall into the co-create area, which reprioritizes work of the staff.

And I appreciate Commissioner Sasi's point, if we already have an existing body in our governance structure, a committee, a commission that's already existing, instead of recreating another uh body that will oversee the work, it is better, more efficient, better governance to work within that already existing structure to ask uh that task force, whether the subset of mobile GR commission, subset of public safety committee, et cetera, to work on uh specific projects within the existing framework of that task force.

At times that doesn't work, uh we understand that, but uh the more we can do that, the better we can be efficient as good in governance and prior at least from the management perspective, uh prior to our staff time.

So if I can, I think that um I think those are good points, city manager.

So if I can, I think that um, I think those are good points, city manager, but one of the things that um I think your framework, and and this is good, and I'm and I think it's a good framework um for the for the topic it addresses, but I think that it's worth us also considering as we move forward, and I I think this is something I really hope we can engage on in the coming years, and that is um moving into more of an experimental culture, and so um we can we can make decisions and inform people about them, we can uh make sure that people really understand all of the work that goes into things.

We can talk about things that take years and we can talk about um you know all the various considerations, um, but it's also true that um sometimes you can do things fast and try them, and uh that also involves uh engagement, but uh but I think quite a different kind of engagement, but I hope that going forward.

I mean, uh one of the things, for example, that New York City does did very well on street design in the last 10 years was they just tried things and they would they would modify something and it would take a little paint and a couple orange barriers, and they could then see if something worked or not.

And I think that um historically that's not been something we've spent a lot of time doing, it's just experimenting.

Um, and and I think our uh often our our you know traditional city perspective has been let's build things that last for 30 years rather than let's see if this works.

Um and so I think that that's a space that we can probably grow into productively, but I think that that's also really an engagement question.

So I don't know if you want to speak to how how things would differ on experimental.

Let me let me start with that because I want to I I do think uh having a culture of innovation is good, and having experts in our departments that um are aware of best practices, uh getting feedback from the community about different parties, that's great.

But from a policy perspective, when we experiment, we have to be intentional.

It has to be very thoughtfully done and prioritize.

And so it's not the idea of the week that we're exploring and for big issues on experimentation.

Um it for me it requires the prioritization of work.

So I'm I'm certainly not afraid of challenging the staff to um think differently, to try things to try and fail, haven't you know, kind of wrap it.

Matter of fact, we have a whole innovation uh effort, but there is still some intentionality that we need to have around experimentation, especially for an organization this big.

We're not a small startup.

So with that, then I'll I'll let uh Ms.

Riley Mucklevich uh follow up.

Thank you.

Yeah, Mr.

Mayor, so I work very closely with our continuous improvement and innovation lead, and in fact, that is something that she deeply embeds in the culture of this organization.

So we do experiment, we like to think of it as a test and try.

So even yesterday I was talking with the neighborhood summit steering committee, and we were talking about the shared learning segment and how to do some data collection analysis and taking the innovation um human-centered design approach.

What we did was we categorized it into three buckets.

What do we want to test and play with now?

What do we want to save for later, and what do we want to try with our group so that way we can see how it feels with the work group first before we go out.

And so this is one of those ways to balance intentionality, policy, and then also thinking about the large scale impact that could happen when we do something that staff may not feel wholly comfortable with.

So we do create and curate those spaces, but we do so in a very intentional and specific way.

Uh Commissioner uh Belcheck and then Commissioner Purdue.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Um, and I don't think we can overstate how important this conversation is today.

Um so I do want to say thank you.

Um, this has been something that I've been hearing about a lot in the last year, you know, what's coming, it's coming, so I'm really glad to see it here.

Um but also it's something I think that there's high, high expectations in the community, and it's something that we hear as elected, it's something I've heard as a regular community person.

And so I think it's important for us to really emphasize the language we can share around when are we in inform, when are we in um involving, and when are we in co-creating?

And so the questions I have right now are when we're talking to community, how do we make that clear?

Because you talked a lot about the impact and decision making, there's a lot of expectation in the community that everything they say will be part of our decision, and that's not always practical, obviously, or or manageable.

And that's not always practical, obviously, or manageable.

So I guess how early in the design process can we get people in beyond inform, but to feel like they're co-creating.

Um how does the feedback when it doesn't get incorporated into a project or gets rejected in some way, get communicated back?

Um, and what do we do to manage expectations or engagement when it goes completely wrong or sideways, which we've had some recent experiences with at the developer level.

So again, not even a city level where developers are going out there being brave, trying to get early information out, not even engagement, and we're getting some conflict going, and all of that, I guess that's three layers of questions, but you know, to highlight just briefly, sometimes we still need things not in digital.

Yeah, and and I think mentioning the library and how to go there when you don't have access, but we have a we do have people who don't use computers or prefer paper, and so remembering how do we cut through the clutter sometimes mean face-to-face relationships.

Um, so keeping that forefront.

Um, and then I'll just let you kind of kind of step in, I guess.

Yeah, thank you.

So I think the first thing I want to begin with is just the broader idea of how to manage expectations and how to communicate the why, right?

And so I would say it's project specific about when it happens.

But for me, um, if we have, like many of us do, pre-existing and ongoing really relationships with community, the assumption is that we should be always talking with them in one way or another.

Within the framework, there is a tool around proactive relationships and also thinking about the role of guidance and consulting and thinking about how to do that as a part of the informal formal check-in.

So, one thing that I try to talk to staff about is to be very clear and accessible with their language, try not to get too technical, and try to be pithy, which I'm not right.

And so um, I think that's one part of it with the inform is to create accessible openings for community to understand why we're doing the project and why we want to interact with them, and then the second part is what their role is, and I think we need to take the time to educate them and say, like I would encourage staff to bring this process map with them, and I would encourage before um we get to the public participation feedback part to do some consensus building, community agreements, explaining why we're here, checking in to make sure that we all understand that first and giving that time and space.

It might not happen at the public meeting, it might happen within a work group or asking community connectors to do that.

So that's why I'm saying project specific, there's a lot of pathways, right?

The other part is is that we have to manage expectations, you know, and so that means having staff have brave and difficult conversations and equipping them with that by saying we really do want you to stay at this meeting, and we really do think that your presence is important.

This is the feedback we're looking for.

Are you willing to give us that feedback?

So, one of the things that we do, and I think you've come to a couple of the events that I've run because you know I'm also partly an analog lady, is I'm a big fan of worksheets, and I think that's one of those ways to really direct to meaningful and specific feedback.

You know, if you ask a specific question, you get the information you're looking for, and then I think it shows community that we're being very thoughtful and intentional about what we're looking for, and it focuses them.

There will be times, and there are times when people will want to co-create with us, right?

And I feel like we have to just have that conversation, and also it's also their right to advocate or disagree or argue against us.

One of the things I say is collaboration is community engagement, and um, one tenant of that is that disagreement is normal and it's gonna happen, right?

And so we have to practice that belief as we work with each other, right?

Work group, partners, whatever.

So, one of the things I want to draw your attention to on the process map is number six, where it says remove and prevent barriers to our participation, and that's under community engagement experience and design.

So that part of it is where we start thinking about audience, right?

And that's where we start thinking about that experiential component of who's gonna be in the room, what information do we want?

And you're right, we have to have a multimodal approach to how we get feedback and how we approach people in an accessible and interactive way.

I think I addressed all your questions.

I think you did, and um, I would just like to flag that I believe that with our community engagement process that we had recently over our new park that we do need to look back at our policy and how the on park naming um and to incorporate that into a policy rewrite of with our new engagement framework and what was done last year.

So flagging that for our city manager and team.

Uh Commissioner Purdue left.

Any um any other comments, colleagues?

Thank you so much.

And that moves us into closed session in room 601.

Thank you.