Letter to the Editor – Yountville Commons Community Engagement: Getting it Right

Dear Editor,

On April 7, Yountville Town Council directed staff to research hiring a facilitator for community engagement. That is a welcome development and an important step toward “getting it right.”

The quality of the community engagement process will play a huge role in determining the success or failure of the future of the YES site (Commons). Community engagement is a challenging endeavor that requires a collaborative partnership between four critically important components: a facilitator, Town Council, town staff and a team of community members.

A Community Engagement Team supports the community engagement process by:

• Providing the broad representation essential to building trust and ensuring the process is viewed as credible and legitimate.
• Sharing vitally important community history, context, and ideas with the facilitator.
• Ensuring engagement activities resonate with the broader community.
• Aligning the process with the community engagement objectives.
• Serving as a bridge between the community and the facilitator.
• Guiding the development of reports that capture community input and recommendations.

The next step in getting it right is to form a Community Engagement Team composed of a representative group of Yountville employees, employers, business owners, veterans, homeowners, and renters.

The first task of the community engagement team is to create a robust and transparent system of communication, decision-making, and information sharing that will connect community members, the community engagement team, the facilitator, Town Council, and Town staff. Once this has been completed, the community engagement process can begin.

The community engagement process has four phases.Throughout each phase, the community engagement team would work closely with the facilitator, Town Council, and Town staff.

Each phase has specific tasks for which the community engagement team would be responsible and milestones that must be reached before proceeding to the next phase.

Phase One: Define the community engagement scope, objectives, and deliverables

Tasks:

• Define proposed community engagement scope, objectives, and deliverables (e.g., community meetings and surveys).
• Submit to Council for approval.

Milestone: Council approves community engagement scope, objectives, and deliverables.

Phase Two: Hire the facilitator

Tasks:

• Learn what a facilitator does and does not do. (see below *)
• Identify criteria for selecting a facilitator.
• Research qualified facilitators.
• Work with Town staff to develop a Request for Proposal (RFP).
• Develop interview questions.
• Solicit candidates.
• Interview candidates.
• Recommend candidates to the Council for final selection.

Milestone: Facilitator is hired.

*  A community engagement facilitator:

• designs meetings and activities and guides the way in which a group interacts, shares information, explores ideas, and navigates disagreements. A facilitator ensures that the process generates high-quality data while building trust and cohesion.

• is neutral and never advocates for outcomes or seeks to influence community input. Their job is to ensure that every member of the community is heard fairly and fully, and to provide a clear and credible record to the entire community.

• is an expert on community engagement facilitation. A community engagement facilitator need not be and preferably is not an expert in any field that may be related, such as architecture, development, or planning. Expertise bias inevitably shapes conversations, filters data, narrows participation, limits innovation, and undermines trust in the process. Independence from content helps preserve neutrality.

Phase Three: Design the community engagement process

Tasks:

• Design a proposed community engagement process.
• Submit to Council for approval.

Milestone: Council approves community engagement process design.

Phase Four: Implement the community engagement process

Tasks: Implement community engagement process.

Milestone: Present community engagement findings to entire community.

Each of the four partners plays a vital role in determining the credibility of the community engagement process and ultimately its success. Taking the abovementioned steps will create the conditions for successful facilitation and a meaningful and effective process – and for decisions that will earn trust, build community, increase buy-in, and shape Yountville for years to come.

We can get it right!

Carrie Hays
Yountville

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