City of San Diego’s Inclusive Public Engagement Guide, Part 2

By: Cathy Smith, writer/trainer/engager

In the previous post, we shared insights from Anisha Gianchandani, the City of San Diego’s Planning Department’s Public Engagement Program Manager, about the City’s new Inclusive Public Engagement Guide. This month, we are continuing the story to hear from two community members—Andrea Schlageter and Tanisha-Jean Martin—who participated in the City’s Focused Discussion Group to provide community input on the guide’s development. We thank them for sharing their experience and insights.

Question: Thinking back on when you first got involved, how did you find out about this opportunity? How did you get involved?

Andrea: I’m signed up for updates from the City. At the time, I was the Chair of the Community Planners Committee…that’s how I found out and got involved. They wanted a good mix of people who were already engaged with the City and people who were new to it.

Tanisha-Jean:  I wear a lot of different hats in the community. This opportunity came across in one of the meetings I’m involved with when the City staff shared a link for anyone interested in being involved in this focused group.

Question: What was important to you about being involved in this effort?

Andrea: From a philosophical standpoint, democracy breaks down the more apathetic we get…so it’s important to not only be involved but to be heard. If you feel your voice isn’t heard, then what’s the point? We see this with the apathy spiral that is already happening. It’s important for my voice to be reflected in what gets decided and to help people be heard, too. For example, if there’s a compromise, if you feel like you were heard in the process, you’re going to feel like you understand where the compromises had to be made. When you are listened to, you listen to other side as well.

Tanisha-Jean: I’m born and raised in Southeast San Diego. The voices from my community in general have been systemically oppressed in this space. Especially in expressing thoughts and providing suggestions. The motto that has risen up for me in regard to our community is that we’re the last to be thought of for resources and first for budget cuts. That’s how it’s always been. So, I’ve been thinking of how we can change that. The best way is to be a voice in that space of public engagement. So, I am looking at how can I make it more efficient and catching all the voices you can, not just hearing certain pockets of it.

Question: As you got into Focused Discussion, what were the opportunities and challenges that came up?

Andrea: Luckily, I could attend every session—not everyone can make 6pm every other Wednesday for a couple of months. It’s a big commitment. Biggest roadblock is about meeting people where they are and being willing to go outside of the channels that are typical. During this project, the City piloted the types of engagement that would be needed. They were at a community-sponsored event on a Saturday about a park in their neighborhood; they implemented online surveys.  They tried these methods out. The key is that it’s going to take multiple methods to meet people where they are and that everyone is not where you/the City is at. You need multiple methods to catch everyone you need to hear from. The City tried some of the suggestions from our input while we were in the focused discussion and the City staff provided feedback of what worked and didn’t work.

Tanisha-Jean: The biggest opportunity was the fact of being a voice in the process. It was good, and the members were pretty diverse as well. The biggest challenge with any group is having the time to build trust, so we can say things that need to be said or when we say those things, the context isn’t taken out of it. Trust is knowing that these comments are coming from a place of being supportive and that they carry a positive energy. The process was quick—only a couple of months—and we needed more time to build that trust. In some grants, the City isn’t allowed to spend money on bringing food and water to engagement events. Culturally, you don’t go to someone’s house empty-handed. You bring your dish even it is water and chips. There are opportunities with these challenges for the City to role model solutions like partnering with a CBO to ask them to host or be a cohost. That host or cohost can bring the water. They can invite the City in and introduce them to the community. The City comes in to our communities as if we should trust them and know them, but systemically we have a lot of distrust with the City. So, it’s an important factor to have that host – a reverend, a community leader, a non-profit in their meeting space saying, “We’re inviting the City here" rather than the City saying, “We’re here.”

Question: How have  the group’s recommendations been incorporated into the draft inclusive public engagement guide?

Andrea: The City is sending out way more notices and sending them earlier about their opportunities to participate. I’ve seen emails and postings in the public facilities. They are trying to get the word out. 

Tanisha-Jean: We were listened to, however the recommendations in the guide are too broad. We gave specific experiences, for example the plan says to meet people where they are. Some input I provided was more specific when it comes to how to go to where people are and to make it fun and creative. When it comes to youth, if I’m not meeting them where they are, how are they going to get to me? It’s the same with adults, they have work, they have kids, so if meetings are at 11am when people are typically at work and when in the evening we aren’t providing childcare that’s another problem. So, we have to see what the barriers are and mitigate our way through them. The City can also partner with groups and community members who are doing engagement work. We can introduce different creative ideas. The best thing the City could do is partner with the community; it’s a lot for a volunteer in the community to do the outreach when the volunteer knows that everyone else on the project team is being paid.

Question: What would be your best advice to anyone in the community planning field about how inclusive engagement can be achieved in San Diego’s communities?

Andrea: Meeting people where they are at and fully understanding who is being impacted and going to find those people. We talked about who those people are a lot. When you want to implement a policy, you might not see all the groups that will be impacted. If it comes up in your public engagement that another group needs to be taken in, then you need to go find those people. It’s like a home remodel…there’s an expected timeline, but things come up. We need to give ourselves room and grace for engagement in a project to grow and evolve. We need to give it space. I’d also caution about setting hard deadlines because that is setting expectation that won’t be met. I’d come to engaging the public with not such a strict idea of what’s going to happen. Have it be open to learning and pivoting.

Tanisha-Jean: In addition to the ideas about going to where people are and removing barriers for their engagement, keep looking for ways to make it even more efficient and to help people participate in their own language. My cousin works for the city and notices a barrier for her deaf mother that has a primary language of American Sign Language. She’ notices that the city has resources to communicate in Spanish and a couple of different languages, but sign language for the deaf community is needed on a screen for direct communication. We want to get information to them in their language and so they can have the dialogue. We need to meet as many people as we can in the most comfortable way for them to have the dialogue. Personally, ASL is my second language in college. I know there’s a deaf community here that are not being communicated with in their own language, even though we have the advanced technology to remove the communication barrier.

Question: What has stayed with you from the experience of participating in this group and developing this guide?

Andrea: The process required us to really listen and hear each other. I complimented one of the people leading this process, because she could pull out the most important parts of what was said and then come up with the next line of questioning from that recap.  I learned and I hope everyone can learn how to do that.

Tanisha-Jean: I’m wanting to continue to see it through. It’s not yet complete. This should also continue to be ever evolving. I did notice in the guide that there’s not a five-year review or update process. As you do something, you’ll catch the gaps, let’s not cover them, but instead let’s notice those gaps and acknowledge them and find solutions. That will let us continue to reduce barriers. I know there’s budget cuts, staffing cuts, department mergers, so internally there’s so much going on. Then externally, too, there’s so much going on. I understand that. I’d like to see there’s a space and timeline to re-evaluate the guide whether it’s with those of us in the first focus group or a new focus group, but even if it’s a new focus group incorporating the old focus group folks into the new. Don’t eliminate things out, let’s grow and add on.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share?

Andrea: The apathy we’re experiencing isn’t the foundation for a strong democracy or one where it thrives. We need civic participation in order for our democracy to work.

Tanisha-Jean: I do feel like the City put a lot of work in on this guide. The City Staff were genuinely listening. Not everything made it into the guide, it’s a lot. Every point can’t make it in, but everything was heard and as documented as it could be. For now, the guide has things more broad than narrow, but if you don’t narrow things down there’s not accountability. So, we’ll find out when we hopefully revisit this in five years or so where there’s spots that can be a little more narrow. It’s okay right now to be a little more broad, it’s something new. The fact that we’re even talking about it is wonderful. Let’s continue to make sure we are talking about it and having these conversations, especially as things are changing. I think it’s important to keep revisiting this and make it a priority to take the action necessary to make sure it progressively evolves with newfound data.