Neighborhoods 2020: The 'Neighborhood Based Engagement Structure'

On February 22, 2018, the Minneapolis Neighborhood and Community Relations Department (NCR) released the "Neighborhoods 2020 Roadmap."

This will be the first of several posts to respond to the Neighborhoods 2020 Roadmap.

The very first statement in the document on page 1 states that "Neighborhoods 2020 is an opportunity to further develop and improve upon the City of Minneapolis’ neighborhood based engagement structure." Before any further analysis can be done on the Neighborhoods 2020 Roadmap, this statement needs to be unpacked and understood.

The statement implies that the City's seventy neighborhood organizations are the core element of the City's community engagement system. In fact, it implies that there is such an engagement structure. Let us be clear, there is no such structure, in policy or in fact, even though NCR has made this policy statement several times in the past.

There is no policy framework at the City that supports this statement.

First, there is no policy framework at the City that supports this statement.

While there is a funding program for neighborhood organizations, the Community Participation Program (CPP), the CPP Guidelines only identify that neighborhood organizations may provide feedback on pending City decisions. It does not say that neighborhood organizations are "The System" of community engagement. The Guidelines do not even require the City in any way, shape or form to reach out and engage neighborhood organizations.

The CPP Guidelines state that one of the three program purposes are to support community participation for, among other things, "influencing City Decisions on Plans, Policies, Procedures, Programs and Services." But this is a far cry from creating a "neighborhood based engagement system." And it was never the intention of the program guidelines to spell out the City's practices or policy on community engagement.

Outside of City Council resolutions recognizing neighborhood organizations in Minneapolis as a "core City service," there is simply no policy framework supporting a "neighborhood based engagement structure." And it needs to be considered whether at any time NCR has advocated for or supported this vision. Recent history suggests that it has not.

As an example, despite NCR's direct participation in planning of the "Minneapolis 2040" planning for the update of the Minneapolis Comprehensive Plan, NCR did not advocate for neighborhood organization involvement in or communicate with neighborhood organizations directly about Minneapolis 2040 planning efforts. And, up until recently, neighborhood organizations had no role. It was not until neighborhood organizations worked directly with Planning Director Heather Worthington that a role for neighborhood organizations was developed.

The City does not currently have a community engagement policy, and has not for several years now.

Second, the City does not currently have a community engagement policy, and has not had one for years.

The City should have a robust, stand-alone community engagement policy, and neighborhood organizations can be a powerful partner in this policy. But the City is ultimately responsible for its own community engagement, not neighborhood organizations.

There was a document developed by the City's Communications Department in 2006, the Community Engagement Process-Model Guidebook. The Communications Department did training on this process frequently, and some planners and other City staff followed the guidebook quite successfully. One example was City Planners Beth Elliot and Haila Maize using the Process to plan a commercial corridor planning process in the very diverse Cedar Riverside neighborhood with significant community participation.

Ownership over the Community Engagement Model Process was then passed to the nascent NCR, where the Guidebook largely fell to the wayside.

It is not like the Guidebook was entirely off the radar of NCR, since it was referenced in an early business plan. In that business plan, NCR committed to "review and revise as necessary the Community Engagement Model Process," and to "complete any necessary revisions to the Community Engagement model process by April 30, 2015."

This never happened, and in fact the City has gone backwards in this regard. The Guidebook has since been forgotten, and you can no longer find it on the City's website, for that matter. For many years the standard form for taking actions to the City council for approval (the Request for Committee Action, or RCA) had a requirement for a report on community impact and community engagement. This was, in fact, one of the first questions on the form, but this long-standing requirement has been dropped, with no apparent objection or comment from NCR.

In the more recent "Blueprint for Equitable Engagement," NCR references IAP2 principles adopted by the City and commits to providing training for City staff. But neither the Blueprint nor the IAP2 principles themselves are any kind of stand-in for a community engagement policy. Nor has any training on IAP2 principles or practices been provided.

NCR itself has an abysmal record of adhering to IAP2 principles or the IAP2 code of ethics. As an example, NCR organized the 2014 Community Engagement Forums in which more than 200 people participated. No effort was made to communicate to participants how their input was used and how it impacted any City decisions. No data was collected and no report was ever prepared for City Council.

Proposed Solution

When it comes to developing a City Community Engagement Policy, I would suggest the following "Roadmap:"

1. The City is repsonsible for its own community engagement efforts, and should have a standalone, robust community engagement policy;
2. Neighborhood organizations should have a clearly defined role within this policy
3. Neighborhood organizations have their own agenda and programs, and their first responsibility is to residents, not the City.

What should a "Robust Community Engagement Policy" contain? More on that in a later post.

And besides "community engagement," what role can and should neighborhood organizations play in the City of Minneapolis? More on that in a future post as well.

Unfortunately, this post responds just to the very first statement on the very first page of the "Roadmap." This will be a very sad and very long road.