Monday Mailing
Year 23 • Issue 23 March 13, 2017 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
The Wisdom of Engaging Nervous Cyclists Ten Ways Cities are Nudging for Better, Healthier Citizens Roadmap to Develop Cross-Jurisdictional Sharing Initiatives Historic Preservation Funding Sources Oregon's Wineries Are Thriving—and Demanding a Million-Dollar Subsidy Oregon’s State Parks Shatter Record with 54 Million Visits in 2016 The Neighborhood That Went to War Against Gentrifiers 2017 Infrastructure Report Card Silver Jackets Webinar - Critical Facilities Flood Vulnerability Assessment Six Ways To Write Emails That Don’t Make People Silently Resent You Two Examples of Bringing Affordable Broadband to Rural Markets
1. The Wisdom of Engaging Nervous Cyclists One of my favorite tasks is interviewing clients to prepare a case study. It’s fun to hear their perspective, and sometimes a great story like this one emerges. This story highlights an unexpected outcome of community engagement for a cycling plan that reminds us in a powerful way about the importance of reaching the broadest audience possible. It also serves as a warning about how easy it is to be steered off course when your community engagement is dominated by a minority with strong opinions.
Quote of the Week: "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." ~Laozi
Oregon Fast Fact: Up until the 1970s it was illegal to show movies or attend car races on Sundays in Eugene, Oregon.
While many agencies are motivated to engage a diverse audience by regulations or politics, it's becoming increasingly clear that the successful implementation of plans often hinges on the views of some of the most historically underrepresented residents. The City of Toronto's recent approval of the landmark Ten Year Cycling Network Plan, which will double spending on cycling for ten years, powerfully proves the value of broad public participation. To access the full story, click here. 2. Ten Ways Cities are Nudging for Better, Healthier Citizens Eating more healthily, saving more, or recycling are all things that most people would agree they’d like to do more of. Yet, even with the best intentions, people often won’t actually change their behavior. Whether it be inconvenience, lack of time, or simply not knowing where to start, we often don’t do the things that we know we should. However, nudges from governments, non-profits, and private companies can help reverse that inertia and produce more desirable behaviors from residents. Nudges are choice-preserving interventions that leverage insights from behavioral science to combat people’s cognitive biases or habits and encourage healthier behaviors. These interventions change people’s choice architecture—the physical, social, and psychological context that influences decision making—to promote preferred behaviors. Nudging may take many forms, but some common categories are communications that encourage certain actions, default rules that make healthy behaviors the norm, and simplifications of processes to make desirable actions easier. One popular example of a nudge comes from Google, which reorganized its fridge to promote healthier eating. Simply by putting bottled water at eye level and Page 1 of 4
soda at the bottom of its fridge, Google increased water intake by 47 percent and reduced soda consumption by 7 percent. To access the full story, click here. 3. Roadmap to Develop Cross-Jurisdictional Sharing Initiatives The Center for Sharing Public Health Services has created A Roadmap to Develop Cross-Jurisdictional Sharing Initiatives. The Roadmap helps guide jurisdictions through the process of considering or establishing cross-jurisdictional sharing (CJS) arrangements. There are three distinct phases on the Roadmap:
Phase One: Explore: Activities during this phase focus on conceptual feasibility, including why to consider CJS, what to share, and who to involve. Phase Two: Prepare and Plan: Activities during this phase focus on developing an implementation plan that includes the logistical and operational aspects of the initiative. Phase Three: Implement and Improve: Activities during this phase focus on ensuring the implementation meets the overall plan and the respective parties’ goals.
Each phase contains a set of issues or questions to explore. While the progression of phases should take place in the order presented, the issues and questions within each phase do not necessarily have to follow the order listed on the Roadmap. If it becomes apparent during the process that some key areas or issues from an earlier phase were overlooked, it is important to go back to that phase and resolve them before moving forward. Keep in mind, the Roadmap is intended to be more of a guide than a set of specific directions for those working on or considering CJS for their jurisdictions. In order to provide further assistance to jurisdictions working their way through each phase of the Roadmap, the Center developed this Overview Table that links items from the Center’s CJS Resource Library to the phases and questions of the Roadmap. To access this resource, click here. 4. Historic Preservation Funding Sources The Preservation Directory has been working to expand the Grants and Funding Sources section of their website. The directory originally intended to create a pdf for distribution, but this method would be too bulky and wouldn't be user-friendly. Currently, users are able to search the new funding database by keyword and location (State, region). To view the current "Grants & Funding Sources" directory, click here. 5. Oregon's Wineries Are Thriving—and Demanding a Million-Dollar Subsidy By any measure, Oregon's wine industry is a great success. In 2000, there were 122 wineries in Oregon. Today, there are nearly six times that many—702 wineries, bottling varieties from albariño to zinfandel. Oregon grape harvests continue to break records, with annual volume increasing nearly 40 percent between 2013 and 2015, and now totaling just under 85,000 tons. Yet industry representatives are seeking a hefty subsidy at a time when the state is broke. To access the full story, click here.
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6. Oregon’s State Parks Shatter Record with 54 Million Visits in 2016 For the fourth year in a row, Oregon’s state park system attracted a record number of visitors. Officials estimated there were 51.7 million visits to the state's parks, historic sites, waysides and natural areas in 2016. An additional 2.7 million camper nights were recorded at the 57 sites where people can camp. Both numbers are records, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department spokesman Chris Havel said. “The upside is that we’re serving more people than ever before — and seeing more smiles than ever before,” Havel said in an interview earlier this year. “At the same time, we’re having problems keeping up with crowding, trash, and the wear and tear on parks.” To access the full story, click here. 7. The Neighborhood That Went to War Against Gentrifiers In May of last year, a nonprofit art gallery called PSSST was preparing to open in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights, a working-class Latino community just across the river from downtown Los Angeles’s Arts District. Instead, on what should have been opening day, the gallery faced a crowd of protesters gathered in front of the space, banging drums, holding posters, and chanting slogans in English (“We don’t need galleries, we need higher salaries!”) and Spanish (“¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”). At some point during the day’s protest, someone threw feces at the window, according to the owners; eventually, a neighbor called the police. This was not the first, last, or angriest protest against the art galleries popping up in Boyle Heights, but it would turn out to be a milestone: Last week, PSSST announced its shuttering. “Our young nonprofit struggled to survive through constant attacks,” reads a statement on their site. “Our staff and artists were routinely trolled online and harassed in-person … we could no longer continue to put already vulnerable communities at further risk.” To access the full story, click here. 8. 2017 Infrastructure Report Card Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card for America’s Infrastructure depicts the condition and performance of American infrastructure in the familiar form of a school report card—assigning letter grades based on the physical condition and needed investments for improvement. America’s Infrastructure Scores a D+ To access the full story, click here. 9. Silver Jackets Webinar - Critical Facilities Flood Vulnerability Assessment You are invited to join us on March 23rd for a Silver Jackets webinar that introduces a flood vulnerability assessment method for critical facilities, which was developed with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Sea Grant College program. Molly Woloszyn, an Extension Climate Specialist for the Midwestern Regional Climate Center and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, which are part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will demonstrate a process and on-line tool that she and her partners created.
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Ms. Woloszyn will step us through a method that identifies specific vulnerabilities to critical facilities that was piloted in the Greater Chicago Metro area recently. The assessment includes recommendations and suggested resources to reduce risks to critical facilities. Reach out to your team members and partners to encourage them to take advantage of this opportunity to participate. Since this approach worked well in the Chicago area, other states might be interested in the methodology as well. Date: Thursday, March 23 Time: Noon (12 pm) Central Time Call in Information: Number: 877-336-1839 Access code: 5884527 Security code: 4567 Web meeting address: https://www.webmeeting.att.com Meeting number: 877-336-1839 Participant code: 5884527 10. Six Ways To Write Emails That Don’t Make People Silently Resent You Research has shown that when we receive an email, we’re predisposed to view the tone of that message negatively–or at least more negatively than the sender intended it. Given that everyone has this natural “negativity bias” against email, it’s important to pay close attention to your phrasing. For the most part, we use email either to remind people about things they said they’d do, or to ask them to do something for us. In the absence of social cues, this is a delicate task. With that in mind, here are a few tips for making your emails friendly and appealing—without running on too long or coming off as ingratiating. To access the full story, click here. 11. Two Examples of Bringing Affordable Broadband to Rural Markets Two broadband companies -- one for-profit, one co-operative -- are providing reasonably priced broadband to rural communities in Minnesota. Ann Treacy, who edits the Blandin on Broadband blog, asks the Hiawatha Broadband Company and Paul Bunyan Communications how they've succeeded. Myth: It’s too expensive to bring high speed broadband to rural areas. Reality: Providers are bringing high speed broadband to rural areas! Below is a map of broadband in Minnesota. You can see that there are communities in rural Minnesota with good broadband (colored in blue). There are a handful of providers who offer that service. Some have been kind enough to agree to talk to me about how they are able to deploy, expand and upgrade broadband networks in rural Minnesota. Today we present interviews with Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) and Paul Bunyan Communications. HBC is a private company. Rural is their mission. Education, economic development and healthcare is important to their community so it is important to them. As their website states, they put people before profits – but that doesn’t mean they are a nonprofit. They are a business and they need a business case that is solvent. To access the full story, click here. Page 4 of 4