HomeMy WebLinkAboutDeschutes 2040 Engagement Audit 1
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Community Engagement Audit #1
TO: Deschutes 2040 Project Management Team
FROM: Ryan Mottau, Emma-Quin Smith, Andrew Parish, and Matt Hastie, MIG
CC:
DATE: January 30, 2023
INTRODUCTION
To help meet the community engagement goals of this project, an iterative process for setting,
reviewing, and resetting the path for community engagement has been built into this planning
effort. This memo lays out the goals of the engagement process, the tools we have implemented
and a status update to inform any redirection necessary at this stage of the project. The
“Recommendations” section at the end of this memo includes suggestions for the next round of
engagement.
ENGAGEMENT GOALS
The following goals were established in the Community Engagement Plan in June 2022 at the start of
this project:
1. The Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan Update project will reach across the county and
engage a broad spectrum of community members, including those who have not been a part of
past comprehensive plan projects. This will include multiple, targeted methods to hear the
perspectives of:
o All parts of Deschutes County (geographic coverage)
o Residents that the Community Development Department doesn’t typically hear from
(demographic diversity, less-vocal communities)
o Younger residents who will live with the direction of this plan (age under 25)
o Residents and stakeholders who are disproportionately impacted by planning decisions
(people of color, low-income residents, veterans, linguistically isolated communities)
o Recent and long-time residents (length of residency)
2. Individual activities will be designed to not only collect input from large numbers of participants,
but also allow for disaggregation of results to explore differences in opinion.
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3. We aim to hear directly from the individuals of Deschutes County; we will also reach out to
community organizations and advocates representing the perspectives described above.
4. We will facilitate meetings to maximize the diversity of voices heard and avoid having the
conversation dominated by individual perspectives.
5. At key points in the process, we will pause to reflect on the results to-date as well as
engagement with social and web content. We will conduct a detailed Engagement Audit during
the project to evaluate how well the County’s goals are being met and make changes to tools
and outreach methods as needed.
6. We will continue the commitment of Deschutes County to remove barriers to participating in
community discussions. This will include access to the physical, technological, cultural, and
language spaces that are a part of the process.
7. We will make it clear to community members how feedback will be used and the limitations at
this level of planning and jurisdiction.
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TOOLS AND METRICS
This section reviews the specific successes and shortcomings of individual tools based on metrics set at the beginning of the project.
Tool Target Status
Evaluation
Remaining Effort Meeting Target
Not Yet Meeting
- No Trend
Project
Webpage
Increasing number of unique
visitors Usersi: 779 - Continue to promote and
monitor activity on website
Email and Social
Media
Growth in contact list
Increasing Clicks on Email
Increasing Social Engagement
Email Listii: 83 390
Opened Emailiii: 54 198
Impressionsiv: 9,699
Continue to provide engaging
content via email and social
media
Community
Open Houses
and Workshops
100+ attendees for each round
1 news story per event
Round 1: 175 attendees
News stories: 8 Repeat success in second
round of open houses
Online Open
Houses 500 Responses to each survey Round 1 OHv: 205 - Round 2 Open House
- Consider.it policy direction
evaluation
Planning
Commission
Meetings
8 planned meetings
Have conducted 3
meetings; 2 scheduled in
March
- Conduct remaining
meetings
- Continue to involve in other
engagement activities
Informational
Materials Develop materials FAQ
Project Summary Create other materials as
needed
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Tool Target Status
Evaluation
Remaining Effort Meeting Target
Not Yet Meeting
- No Trend
“Meeting in a
Box”
More than 75 stakeholder groups
At least one group for each target
perspective.1
Groups/Meetings: 56
Attendees: 283
Target Perspectives: 7/7
Continue meeting with new
groups; reconvene with other
groups in later phases.
County Staff
Training Conduct 2 sessions. Complete 7/28/22 none
Board of County
Commissioner
Updates
2-3 planned work sessions.
Additional briefings by staff.
No consultant briefings to
date
Briefing in March. Support future briefings as
directed by staff
Technical
Advisor
Coordination
Flexible use of technical experts.
Technical advisor
involvement in policy
updates Continue to utilize technical
advisors during public policy
review phase
Total
Participation
Proportionate Geographic
Representation by ZIP Code.
Online OH: representation
by ZIP code was within
11%2 Improve response from
smaller population ZIPs
1 Veterans, youth, people of color, low-income residents, linguistically isolated communities
2 The project team tracked ZIP code participation in the online open house and compared that to the proportion of the population (by US
Census Bureau ZIP code tabulation area) living in each. For the first round online open house (the only ZIP code data available) all ZIP codes
were represented except for Brothers (97712) and the others were within +/- 11% of the Census percentage.
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Tool Target Status
Evaluation
Remaining Effort Meeting Target
Not Yet Meeting
- No Trend
Engagement
Audits At least three check in points Engagement Audit 1:
January 2023 Two additional check ins
including an update to this
audit
For details about each tool, please see the Community Engagement Plan.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
The following list represents the start of a discussion about specific actions the project team could
take to improve performance connected to community engagement goals for the project:
• In general, the project should continue as planned. The reach of the initial engagement
effort was good, though there is room for improvement.
• Consider an event in/near Brothers for the next round to improve geographic reach of the
project.
• One press release advertising the open houses and project website was translated into
Spanish. Staff worked with the Deschutes County Health Department staff who coordinate
closely with Spanish speaking community members to offer “meeting in a box” meetings and
presentations. No other project materials so far have been translated to Spanish and staff
was unsuccessful in receiving a response from Spanish language outlets.
• No requests have been received by the project team for accessibility or language
accommodations. Even so, the team should be proactive about Spanish-language
engagement.
o Possible channels include churches in Latinx communities and school-related
organizations.
o Consider a targeted set of materials to translate into Spanish, even though the
County has not received and translation requests so far.
• Look for opportunities to directly contact other underrepresented groups, particularly
County residents with lower incomes.
• Continue to create interim opportunities to speak with the project team or voice concerns.
o Less formal and smaller than open houses.
o Potentially self-scheduled online sessions, like providing the community
opportunities to sign up for “office hours.”
o Highlight these opportunities via the Project Website, the County’s social media
channels and during other activities.
o Highlight ongoing opportunity to comment at any time via the website (17 comments
received as of January 2023).
• Use social media and email to frame large policy questions, such as destination resorts,
water use, natural hazards, etc. and invite public participation through online events or
direct (email) contact.
• Demographic cards distributed at meetings have been difficult to tabulate. For round two
MIG will reformat the demographic card to facilitate automated (scanned) tabulation of
results.
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• Some locations have inherent limitations for access and accessibility but are the only known
community meeting spaces. There may not be a good solution to this issue although
conducting meetings outdoors in some of these locations, if space allows and weather
permits, may be one possible solution.
i Google Analytics: Users
ii Constant Contact: Count of emails
iii Constant Contact: Opens
iv Post Analytics from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Nextdoor: Total Impressions
v Alchemer (MIG Account): Total Respondents