Report on Kettering Meeting

For: Saline County Study Steering Committee

Author: Mark Belwood

Introduction

This meeting was not scheduled as a Steering Committee meeting, but Steering Committee members were invited to attend. I attended and am filing this report to inform other members of the Steering Committee about the proceedings. This final report differs from the preliminary report primarily in that the information under the headings "Others in Attendance from Extension" and "Others in Attendance" has been extensively revised--mainly by providing more accurate titles. Also, a very slight change was made in the next to last paragraph to improve clarity.

Report

Date, Time, Place of Meeting:
August 20, 1997 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM CDT
Alumni Center, UMC Campus

Steering Committee Members in Attendance:
Mark Belwood

Management Team Members in Attendance:
Russell Dehn, Mike Dillon, Richard Pemberton, Cynthia Crawford, Darin Starr, Chris Fulcher, Tom Johnson

Others in Attendance from Extension:
Ronald Powers (AssociateVice President), Murray Hardesty (Program Director), Tom Henderson (Program Director), Jerry Carpenter (Extension Assistant Professor, State Specialist in Water Quality), Nancy Flood (Consumer and Family Economics Specialist in Putnam County), Jack Timmons (Associate Professor, Community Development Specialist), George Nicholas (Associate Professor Emeritus, Community Development Specialist), Don Littrell (Associate Professor, Community Development Specialist), Rex Ricketts (Program Coordinator, Commercial Ag), Ken Pigg (Associate Professor, Rural Sociology Specialist, will evaluate the Saline County Study project),

Others in Attendance:
Jon Kinghorn (Kettering Foundation)

Morning Session

Weather delayed the arrival of Dr. Kinghorn until noon, so the morning session was spent in a general discussion regarding the Saline County Study. Murray Hardesty mentioned several instances in which the common thread was local people working to solve their own problems. Tom Henderson said that land use is a problem in many states. He said Michigan State has a web site on land use issues. He believes we are turning the corner from governmental solutions to solutions on a local level. His area of interest is reconciling economic development with the environment.

Dr. Powers suggested that it might be the wrong approach to institute regulations without first considering values. He intimated that finding a set of shared community values (if in fact such a set exists) is a prerequisite to planning for what needs to be done to maintain those values.

Jerry Carpenter informed us about the watershed/water quality initiative that he heads up. The initiative works in much the same way as the Saline County Study is organized: the people living in the watershed guide the project. The Long Branch Watershed in Macon County is the pilot project. The initiative started in 1989--about the time when non-point sources of pollution were beginning to become an issue. Since there has been very little problem with groundwater in our state, the initiative focuses on surface water.

Jack Timmons noted that the problems posed by the Saline County Study are moving targets: the issues change as they are being addressed. Don Littrell posed the questions: How can people learn to talk to each other even before they have the facts? How can we move from debate (where each party has their minds made up) to deliberation (where the parties come with an open mind)?

Nancy Flood related her involvement with the Kettering Foundation in working with Community Issues Forums in the Putnam County area.

We broke for lunch. Dr. Kinghorn arrived about this time.

Afternoon Session

Dr. Kinghorn heads up the National Issues Forum of the Kettering Foundation. Up to now three issues have been addressed per year, but Dr. Kinghorn has suggested cutting back to one per year and putting more emphasis on helping communities conduct their own local issues forums.

The Kettering approach to an Issues Forum works as follows:

The public is surveyed to obtain a wide variety of opinions about the issue.

The issue is 'framed' by developing a set of three alternative courses of action.

Testing is done to ensure that the three alternatives cover all points of view.

People come to a Forum as citizens (not as special interest individuals as is more typical of hearings) and deliberate (not debate) the alternatives. The good and bad points of each choice are discussed, as well as the consequences of moving in a particular direction. A moderator is present to keep the discussion on track.

The desired outcome of a Forum is a shared set of values and purposes that can be used as a basis for action.

It was thought prior to this meeting that the Kettering Foundation might be interested in doing a National Issues Forum on land use. When asked about this Dr. Kinghorn said that Kettering had been considering it; however, he said their current position on the matter was that the land use issue is so specific to each locality that doing it as a National Issues Forum would not work.

According to Dr. Kinghorn more and more people are framing their own issues all the time. Kettering has people around the country who can teach you to frame your own issue. Courses generally take two and one-half days. He said that a common problem with failures is not getting people involved prior to framing an issue; you can't frame an issue without getting the people's opinion first. In the case of the Saline County Study he suggested that a process of informing the public about the issue (or issues as the case may be) should maybe precede the opinion gathering phase. He suggested the newspaper as a better mode than a meeting to accomplish this, because it would cover more of the citizenry and because it would provide the information in a form that could be easily referenced. The article should put the facts in context with how the county and citizens are affected.

George Nicholas commented that there is the possibility for several issue forums in the Saline County Study.