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Uploaded: Monday, April 6, 2009, 9:19 AM

Getting to the basics of 'civic engagement'
Staff proposal calls for new 'cafe series,' revived leadership program, fresh look at public meetings

Listen to the Palo Alto City Council meeting live when the council is in session (usually Monday nights at 7 p.m.) via the KZSU Webcast.

by Gennady Sheyner
Palo Alto Online Staff

Posted by Carroll Harrington, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 9:59 am

I think this is one of the most exciting presentations to come along in recent times. The staff has taken a rather amorphous topic (civic engagement for the common good) and turned it into an action plan. I urge Palo Altans to read the reports, attend the meetings or go online and make constructive comments.

Accolades to City staff, the Human Relations Commission and PAGE for pursuing this issue!

Posted by Howard, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 10:36 am

I can't help but be a cynic and suspect that PAGE is a group of Palo Alto establishment types who are trying to exercise disproportionate control over the Palo Alto political process.

Posted by PAOnline reader, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 10:42 am

Howard,

How would you go about trying to promote civic engagement?

Posted by Ray Bacchetti, a resident of the University South neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 10:51 am

In recommending Civic Engagement for the Common Good to the City Council as one of its 2009 priorities, this is some of what a coalition of nine community organizations wrote:

“'Civic' and 'engagement' need to be joined at the hip. Though the meaning of 'civic engagement' doesn’t lend itself to precision, it is not difficult to locate its core significance. 'Engagement' signals more than just showing up and making one’s point. If advocates only assert, then they aren’t listening. There’s no reason, then, to expect others will listen to them. The worst case is: no one listening = no engagement. In the best case, participants show up open minded but not empty headed. They’re there to talk and listen. But more to the point, the talk should be about teaching and the listening should be about learning.

'Civic' points to the public square but not just to that location. It’s also about the motives one brings into that special place where we work out shared issues. It’s about expressing one’s point of view in ways that illuminate its relationship to the well-being of the community and its members. In our view, 'civic' is more process than picture, more verb than noun. 'Civic' treats teaching, learning, empathy, and the cultivation of good will and trust as the building blocks of the agreements that define community well-being. Meetings need to make

'civic' a basic element of how and why 'engagement' happens. 'Engagement' without a civic compass can be scattered, noisy, and contentious; 'civic' without authentic engagement can be hollow, abstract, and uninspiring.

We emphasize the common good because in a well functioning community we share more than we own. It is the stewardship of the part we share that gives civic engagement so much of its significance."

Whether you agree, disagree, or have a different perspective on this Council priority, I hope you'll turn out this evening to listen and participate in the study session.

Posted by FYI, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 11:09 am

The members of the PAGE Board of Directors are

Ray Bacchetti - retired from Stanford, Vice President for Planning and Management.; member of Human Relations Commission

Harold Boyd - developer

Andy Doty - headed Stanford's Community Relations for about 20 years

Barbara Gross - Manager, Garden Court Hotel

Julie Jerome

Virginia Lee

John Northway - major project architect in Palo Alto

Bonnie Packer - former Planning Commissioner who actively supported large development; describes herself as a housing advocate; now on Board of BMR housing developer

Sally Probst -Housing chair, PA League of Women Voters; describes herself as a housing advocate

Robert (Bob) Rosenzweig, former Vice President for Public Affairs at Stanford University

Mark Sabin - former President.of the PA Chamber of Commerce; describes himself as a housing advocate

Nancy Shepherd

Barbara Spreng

Valerie Stinger - member of the Library Commission

John Tarlton - real estate, development

Susie Thom - member of Library Commission

Lanie Wheeler former Mayor of PA; describes herself as a housing advocate

Posted by Info, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 11:31 am

"Civic engagement" loses any value to me when the Council declined to put the issue of a new police facility to the voters, hypocritical in the least.

Posted by Howard, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 11:35 am

In response to:

Howard,

How would you go about trying to promote civic engagement?

Although the City should facilitate civic engagement in the sense of having open meetings with notice, info freely and conveniently available via the Internet, etc., I question the idea of the city or self-appointed civic engagement adovcates "promoting" civic engagement. Civic engagement is a self-sustaining, free market creature that just happens.

Posted by common sense, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 11:41 am

The council & city staff wants civic engagement to mean supporting their agenda. After watching a number of council meetings & commission meetings, opposing viewpoints are ignored, agendas items are manipulated to subvert opposition. The city spends money to conduct "polls" to figure out how they can "sell" their agenda, they play games with the utility money to avoid placing on the ballot taxation issues.

The net effect is a drop of interest in some in participating, and more active opposition and suspicion of the council & government.

The public safety building is a great example, of how the council & city manipulate the issue to avoid putting it to a vote.

Another great example is the council endorsement of the High Speed Rail Bond.

Posted by Lois, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Civic engagement is almost entirely for North Palo Alto. At a recent meeting at Palo Verde school to discuss the future of the East Meadow Circle/Fabian Way neighborhood comprehensive plan; 125 South Palo Alto residents showed up but only one member of the City Council, Greg Schmid.

What a wonderful opportunity for members of the City Council to have made an effort to interacted with a very concerned group of South Palo Alto residents, but where were they? Civic engagement must be a two way effort.

Posted by resident, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Maybe the council ought to get engaged in listening to the community and stop raising our utility rates!!!

Geez, maybe if they would read these comments on the Weekly articles, they'd get a clue as to how people feel.

Posted by PA Online reader, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Howard, Info, Common Sense and Resident:

Civic engagement is about participation in a democracy--listening and letting your voice be heard. Members of our council, school board, planning commission, etc. contribute thousands of volunteer hours a week at what is very often a thankless job. Even if we don't agree with them, we should appreciate the huge amount of time and effort they put in. Honestly, would you put in that many hours for your community?

Respectful disagreement is one thing, but anonymous complaints with an undertone of nastiness degrade the quality of conversation for the rest of us.

Posted by Douglas Moran, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Douglas Moran is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

I wrote a series of essays on the Palo Alto Process that are extremely relevant to Civic Engagement because they focus on how normal citizens are excluded and alienated from the process. They can be found at Web Link.

Aside: These essays were intended to spur discussion during the 2007 Council campaign but the issue never got traction.

Posted by Another resident, a resident of the Charleston Meadows neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 2:24 pm

I generally do not agree with Mr Moran on many issues. However I think his essays are very well written and raise some valid and interesting points.

He especially hit the nail on the head with his comment about Alma Plaza:

"Earlier articles in this series have included examples where this has been a problem. The redevelopment of Alma Plaza became a huge problem because the City - the Council and the City Manager - refused to exercise even minimal leadership. While there were reasonable compromises possible, the City's top officials repeatedly deferred hoping that a consensus would emerge, despite overwhelming evidence that that would not happen."

and that is why we have lost Alma Plaza forever as a neighborhood shopping center, despite all the talk from the council about "walkable" neighborhoods.

Posted by Barbara Spreng, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 5:32 pm

The PAGE board list posted above is very out-of-date. Harold Boyd, Andy Doty, Barbara Gross, Virginia Lee, Sally Probst, Bob Rosenzweig and Susie Thom are no longer on the board. However, when they did sit on the board, they served with dignity and open-mindedness, never pushing any public or private agendas for the organization. Additional current members include Liz Coe, Tommy Fehrenbach and Chris Bui. Perceptions that PAGE [as an organization] takes positions on issues or candidates are mistaken perceptions. As current chair of the PAGE board, I can state without equivocation that PAGE has never taken a support or oppose position on any ballot issue or candidate. Our advocacy efforts have always been to promote open dialogue, inclusion and thorough, thoughful disbursement of information. Oh, yeah....we also think it's a good idea to treat one another with respect.

Posted by plum, a resident of another community, on Apr 6, 2009 at 6:32 pm

"common sense" has it exactly right: "The council & city staff wants civic engagement to mean supporting their agenda."

Why is the city staff determining what the civic engagement programs should be? Lectures are not engagement. They are one-way communications. The Open City Hall website isn't engagement. It's another one-way channel which protects council and staff from having to engage.

Does anyone know or care what the residents want? Oh, wait, I forgot. Read again what "common sense" said.

The city likes its feel-good programs and all this green, hate-free civic-engagement feeds their egos. Whether the programs are effective is irrelevant.

I don't think PAGE represents anyone but the FAB 400 establishment.

As for leadership classes, no one needs them more than our city “leaders.”

It is beyond pathetic that the HRC document referenced above (Web Link) asks for $7,500 to hire “consultants to conduct training sessions for pilot project participants to assess and design meetings toward achieving civic engagement goals.” Wonderful bureaucratic jargon!

The proposal is titled “Building Civic Engagement into Civic Business by Multiplying the Value of Meetings.” I wonder who thought up this engaging title.

If we have people in our city government who don’t know how to hold a meeting, we’re beyond help. Is there ANYTHING this city can do without hiring consultants?

Note that Greg Betts, Community Services Interim Department Director approved this proposal. Does Mr. Betts know how to hold a meeting? Is it beyond his scope of responsibility to teach others how to conduct a meeting?

Palo Alto Strategies, yet another web site, Web Link appears to be nothing more than a marketing/PR site for providing city hype. How much is this costing taxpayers? Objective, current information should be available on the city’s website – if the much-promised update ever launches.

All the fuss over definitions could be eliminated by going to Wikipedia (Web Link), which says civic engagement is "Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern." Probably too simple for Palo Alto.

Posted by Resident, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Wow, they spent $7,500 to hire a consultant on how to get residents engaged? That's surely one way to get residents enraged.

So this how they spend their "profits" from the utilities fund? Wow.

Posted by Just Wondering, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 7:10 pm

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]

Posted by Sheri Furman, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 9:53 pm

To PA Online reader,

You asked, "Honestly, would you put in that many hours for your community?"

As a matter of fact, I put in 25+ hours a week (and have done so for the last decade) on behalf of the neighborhoods, both Midtown and PAN (Palo Alto Neighborhoods).

One doesn't have to be on Council or a Commission to serve one's community.

Posted by PA Online Reader, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 6, 2009 at 11:04 pm

Good for you, Sheri, and I completely agree. There are countless ways to serve your community without being on the council or a commission. I think I saw one of your neighborhood-oriented presentations once and it was very good.

Posted by Carroll Harrington, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Apr 7, 2009 at 10:58 am

I urge everyone to reread Barbara Spreng's concise posting describing PAGE. And I also want to commend Sheri Furman for her exceptional volunteering with Palo Alto Neighborhoods, Emergency Preparedness and the Community Environmental Action Partnership.

Posted by FYI, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 7, 2009 at 6:08 pm

Ms. Spreng, Thank you for the corrections to the list of PAGE directors. I could not find a more recent list.

No one says PAGE takes positions on issues or candidates. However, the values of an organization can reasonably be inferred from the backgrounds of the majority of its Board.

Your new Directors include

Liz Coe, who appears to be the wife of Andy Coe, Chief Government Relations Officer for Stanford Hospital and Clinics, and a Director of the Chamber of Commerce

Tommy Fehrenbach, Stern Mortgage, is Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce

I was mistaken about former PAGE director Harold Boyd. He has been a Dean of Students at Stanford, and Director of the Medical Fund for the Stanford Office of Development.