Transcript Presentation Slides - Montana AHEC and Office of Rural Health

ACHIEVING ACTIVE
COMMUNITY GOALS
July 25th
2013
Building Blocks of
Successful Planning
 Communications &
Relationships
 Political Support
 Plans & Policies
 Budgets & Codes
Communications
& Relationships
Budgets &
Codes
Interdependent &
cannot stand
alone!!!!
Plans and
Policies
Political
Support
To be successful you will need to take
the long view to achieve results.
COMMUNICATION &
RELATIONSHIPS
 Building support for our work to
Often focuses on traditional
workshops and open houses.
 While essential from a statutory
and “due process” stand not
typically effective to achieve
what you want.
 The overlooked key is many times
personal relationships.
COMMUNICATION cont’d
 Every community has people who
are influential
•Local business owners
•Professionals….doctors or lawyers
•Well respected retirees.
•Etc…..
 Can determine the success of a
project.
•building a relationship with them
can be essential.
COMMUNICATION cont’d
When preparing to build a
relationship…. think about how your
project might benefit them:




Business owner……the economic
benefits
A school superintendant……academics
and transportation costs
A pediatrician…….children’s health.
Parents………children’s health and
safety.
COMMUNICATION cont’d
 Technical skills are important , but
success will generally come down
to your ability to communicate and
build relationships.
 I made this transition. Right out of
graduate school I thought of
myself as a technical person.
 I realized that without communication
and relationships all my other skills
were moot.
COMMUNICATION cont’d
Good communication skills will also
be key when addressing skepticism
or opposition:



“Agenda 21” angst
Fiscal conservatism
Etc.
POLITICAL SUPPORT
 The support of our elected
officials is essential to succeed in
our work.
 They adopt the plans, codes and
budgets that will create an
active community.
 We all deal with a variety of
elected officials:
•Sympathetic
•Apathetic
•Outright hostile
POLITICAL SUPPORT cont’d
 Those of you with sympathetic
commissions ….hurray!! that is
great, it will make your task a bit
easier.
 For those of you with apathetic or
hostile commissions…..frankly
there is no simple solution…. just a
lot of hard work.
POLITICAL SUPPORT cont’d
Tips and Advice:
1. First and foremost: practice your
communication and relationship
building skills.
2. Get the facts into their hands…easy
to understand, strong talking
points:
 Providing transportation choices
 Improving safety for children
 Saving taxpayers money and time
 Etc.
POLITICAL SUPPORT cont’d
3. Elevate the importance of building
active communities:
Letters to the editor
 Visits by constituents…allies
 Questions at candidate forums
 Etc.

4. Make them look good…..give them
credit for successes.
5. Don’t assume a supportive
commission will remain so…..they
need help to stay in office
PLANS & POLICIES
 Growth policies, CIPs and
transportation plans are an
expression of a community’s
desires.
 Provide the legal basis for the
decisions.
 While statutorily required and
simply a good way of making
decisions, they are not a means
onto themselves.
PLANS cont’d
 process of developing a plan can
become the focus versus the
outcomes wanted
 Easy to fixate on meetings, public
comments, schedules and lose
sight of what you want to achieve.
 Focus on the outcomes a
community wants……the process is
simply to achieve this.
PLANS cont’d
Advice:
 Understand why you want to
develop a plan
 Focus on physical, real world
outcomes
 Set achievable goals, but very
clear goals:
 be realistic….understand the
political and economic reality
 your allies and governing body want
to see progress
PLANS cont’d
 Avoid complex narrative, facts
and figures….you will lose people.
Brevity, clarity and conciseness
Use clear graphics and photos
 Use a tone and language easily
understood and appreciated
Avoid boilerplate language
 Working with Consultants……you
should “lead” the process
Budgets & Codes
 Planning documents identify
outcomes and steps to achieve
them.
•“this is where “the rubber meets the
road”
 For example the growth policy
might say the community will:
•Construct XX miles of bike lanes or
XX feet of sidewalks
 Amend the zoning code to promote
compact, walkable development
 Etc
Budgets cont’d
 The question becomes will your
governing body actually budget
money to implement these steps.
 Limited fiscal resources has led to
an over reliance on codes and
regulations or grants monies to
achieve goals…..OR
 No progress at All!!
Budgets cont’d
 it important that communities
balance the use of codes and
public monies to create active
communities.
 the commitment of public funds to
a project related to active
communities is an incredible
statement of support.
Budgets cont’d
 A balanced approach is a
statement to businesses and
developers that the community
will share the burden.
 may make it easier to implement
other projects…codes etc.
 thirdly, public-private
partnerships are far too often
overlooked.
Conclusion
 Does anyone have any final
thoughts, comments or questions
about this presentation or about
how the BAC webinar series can be
designed to most effective for
you?
 Jerry Grebenc: jerry@future-
west.org or 406-439-0283