Deliberating The Link

Transcript of City Council discussion of facilitating the discourse

It would be disingenuous for the authors of this blog to suggest or pretend that our combined 60 years of experience in Harrisonburg journalism, politics, and public service do not affect our views of public policy and how it is arrived at. With that in mind, we offer without comment, analysis, or interpretation this transcript of City Council discussions of having an outside facilitator handle discussion of The Link. The transcript is cleaned up for readability.

Motion by council member Dany Fleming, passed unanimously by City Council on Aug. 12:

I appreciate everyone who's still here, everyone who’s watching and everyone who spoke. And I think one of the things we learned is there's still questions people have. They’d like to find a way to get those questions answered. They’d like maybe some additional opportunities to add to the discussion. So we've heard from our developer that they're willing and interested in also being engaged in that process. That's good.

So I'll make a motion for City Council to direct staff to facilitate a process engaging the developer and residents in a discussion around The Link project. I'll put at this time a proposed deadline of September 23 for that process to go through and then staff can work with a facilitator and design a process for that. And I think I recognize that it's also possible that in that process if there are additional proffers or changes that come through there that could alter the date for that, but that'll be remain to be seen through the process.

Discussion from the Sept. 9 City Council meeting, Other Matters:

City Manager Ande Banks: Mr. Brown, the city attorney and I did get an update from the facilitation team. The final details on what that structure is going to look like are being finalized. They hope to have that done within the next week or so. It does appear that the meetings will be taking place toward the end of September, beginning of October. They are not going to be able to make the September 23 deadline, but do anticipate the facilitators having an update for City Council on the 23rd about what that process is going to look like.

Council member Dany Fleming (chairing the meeting in the absence of Mayor Deanna Reed): And then they will have a process of communicating to the public and I guess through our website as well. We'll also allow some announcements of the sessions.

Banks: Well, I don't know that it would be the city that will be pushing that communication out again. The facilitation team has been very clear about remaining as neutral as possible and certainly we're not requiring this. We were asking them to step in and work with the developer to provide this public engagement so I don't know that the city will be necessarily making those communications, but I know that once they have finalized the details that the facilitation team will be pushing that out to the community.

Fleming: for the folks who are following this, I think interest in trying to figure out what the next steps are, it seems like September 23rd won't be a day where they can kind of come through with a completed facilitation process as they're likely extending past that date, but on the 23rd the facilitators, the developer can be here and make a presentation or maybe get some information about that. Since Council set a process here it seems and it's up to council to bring this back to the agenda, that September 23rd would not be a date that this would come back on the agenda until we've kind of completed the facilitation process. I think it's one thing just to kind of convey to folks, … folks looking to come here on the 23rd, that there's not something specifically happening … sort of clear and that council would not likely take up an action until facilitated process is completed at some point. And of course the other issue could be, you know, in the event that there are substantial changes to the proposal that it would necessarily go back to planning. So there is a process that could trigger that back to Planning Commission, there'd be a public hearing there following that, then you come back. So sounds like a number of steps that could happen before it comes back to council. But … September 23rd is not a date where that's when we’d take action. But there could be an update that developer gives on the facilitation process. Hopefully before that time there will be some communication from the developer to the community about the facilitation process and how that how that will proceed, OK. So just want to get some clarity. I see some folks here. So, so just think it adds some clarity a little bit. I think a lot of folks are kind of interested in that.

Council Member Nasser Alsaadun: Mr. City Manager, if you could highlight the process of selecting the facilitators, and on what basis. And if you are planning to communicate with the developer and people who are in favor, are you giving the same contract to people who are not in favor.

Banks: I think that I can speak to that. Now, I will say that, you know, City Council asking city staff to pull together a facilitation is within the discussion of roles and responsibilities. We are not participating, nor did we choose facilitators. So to make clear, we have an abundance of professional facilitators here in the community, and after this process and after the public hearing, two private facilitators, a facilitator from Eastern Mennonite University and two facilitators from James Madison University all reached out and we had an initial meeting to discuss this. Those connections were made; at that point, really, I felt like I had followed through on the action asked for by City Council. At this point, as you all indicated, you all tabled the agenda item and asked for a facilitated community engagement. That engagement is between the developer and the community. And the facilitators have been very clear in the two meetings that we've had, just virtual meetings, that neutrality of the facilitation is very important to them. And so at this point, they are just occasionally giving me an update on when to anticipate and what the schedule is going to look like moving forward.

Alsaadun: So the developer has nothing to do with selecting the facilitator?

Banks: I did not select facilitators.

Alsaadun: No, the developer.

Banks: No, he did not select the facilitators. As I said, there was an initial meeting between the developer and the developer's representative and approximately 6 or 7 professional facilitators, academics and private, who do facilitation work and after that they took it and went from there.

Fleming: So a group of Harrisonburg facilitators recommended folks that they had experience with or knew, I guess, where they would call high level professional facilitators. You recommended those.

Alsaadun: And are they going to meet with people who are not in favor, to hear from them.

Banks: Again, I I don't know what that structure is going to look like, because that is the development between the Timberwolf and the facilitation team, understanding that they need to provide an opportunity for engagement from the public. So I have not been a part of that discussion on what the actual structure of those engagement opportunities are going to be.

Alsaadun: I just want to make sure that the city is standing the same distance between the people who are in favor and the people who are not in favor.

Banks: Yeah. Ohh. It's very front of mind, Councilman. I mean, again, I'm not participating in this. I handed it over to a team of facilitators to work with the developer. Understanding that there are plenty of members of the community that want to provide input to the team development.

Fleming: You know, suggesting community engagement necessarily in and of itself should indicate to the developer, it's to engage community folks who are in favor or not in favor of the project, who don't know much about the project. They have to do some public engagement. It's up to them to make that decision. But it'll be up to us to determine whether there was good engagement that was done. I mean, we've said we want to see engagement done on this and so we can make that assessment as well whether we think it had integrity in reaching out across the broad spectrum of folks who are weighing in on this.