Hello from the Ruckelshaus Center, and welcome to our Fall eNews.
It’s impossible to convey all the great things we want to share via e-mail (we have twelve active projects!), so we decided to showcase only a bit of our activity:
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Our Road Map team has been on the road for a year conducting workshops at the request of the Washington State Legislature.
The Road Map project seeks to:
- understand what communities desire for Washington's future,
- articulate what is unique and important about each region, and
- identify potential updates to the State’s growth planning framework.
Thus far, the team has held over forty workshops in twenty-one regions across the state. More than 1000 people have attended, with another 300 invitees participating so far via online form or interview. Participants have enthusiastically conveyed interests, concerns, hopes, and ideas for the state and their community.
- The Center designed a systematic process to engage a wide range of participants: representatives from federal, tribal, state, county, and city governments; private and nonprofit entities; advocacy organizations; associations; elected officials; academics; and underrepresented populations.
- A vital component involves understanding what the next generation of Washingtonians (generally 18 to 35-year-olds) desires for the future, and the values that underlie that future.
The full series of 58 regional workshops wraps up in December. Beginning in January, the team will synthesize and analyze the massive amount of information collected, summarizing it in a report to the Legislature in June 2019.
To see how it all fits together, you can read more here or contact project leads Amanda Murphy and Joe Tovar
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To find out more about our other projects and initiatives please visit our project page.
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Collaborative Capacity Building Initiative
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Our current and past interns created a wonderful video to say thank you to donors who make the internship program possible.
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Creating and empowering the next generation of collaborative leaders is vital for the health and quality of life in our region.
The Center’s Internship Program provides meaningful hands-on experience for students and recent graduates interested in collaborative public policy. Interns are exposed to current issues in the Washington and the Pacific Northwest and gain insight into Alternative Dispute Resolution and Collaborative Governance. Interns work with professional mentors on real collaborative policy projects and cultivate collaborative skills needed to succeed in the field.
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Spokane River Regional Toxic Task Force
In 2012, a broad group of Spokane River interests including business, conservation groups, and state, local, and federal government agencies (Spokane River Regional Toxic Task Force) asked the Center to facilitate its collaborative effort to simultaneously find and reduce sources of toxic chemicals to the River.
The Center’s impartial guidance through twice-a-month meetings over the next five years enabled the Task Force to reach consensus agreement on a comprehensive plan to bring the River into compliance with water quality standards.
In late 2016, the Task Force—including eleven various government agencies—approved the plan a month ahead of schedule. (Can you think of another time eleven governments completed something together ahead of time?)
Even while doing the hard work of collecting data and developing and agreeing on a plan, the Task Force and its member organizations also took action by implementing targeted pollution control measures. Recent river sampling has showed the levels of toxic poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the lowest levels since testing began.
As the Task Force moved into implementing the Comprehensive Plan, the Center completed the final phase of our involvement by assisting the Task Force to find and hire a facilitation contractor with a project management focus.
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Chairman Circle Luncheon Video
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The 2018 Chairman’s Circle Luncheon was a remarkable event, featuring an engaging conversation with the National Institute for Civil Discourse about the current tenor of public dialogue regionally and nationally, and how NICD and the Ruckelshaus Center’s work help us get from mutual recriminations to multi-party solutions.
Thanks to TVW’s filming you can view the whole event by clicking the above image.
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Missed out on last season's eNews letter? Visit our eNews archive |
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