Chapter 6
Ways To Put The People In Planning

The preceding chapters of this manual answer some basic questions about citizen involvement: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? This chapter deals with How? It outlines almost 100 specific measures for getting the public involved in planning. They are arranged in five categories:

• Planning for effective citizen involvement
• Getting information to the public
• Getting information from the public
• Exchanging ideas and information with the public
• Working with the media.

In effect, this chapter is a cookbook full of recipes for citizen involvement. Its purpose is to present a wide variety of recipes to choose from, not to suggest that each city or county should try all of them. A recipe that would be good for a small city, for example, might not work at all in a metropolitan county.

The measures described in this chapter are not just theories. Almost all of them have been or are being used successfully by communities in Oregon, as you will see from the many examples cited.

A word of caution, however, about those examples: the authors of this handbook have not evaluated all of the 277 local citizen involvement programs in Oregon. Our listing of one community's work therefore does not imply that the example cited is the best or only one of its kind in the state.

Also, the absence of an example with a particular "recipe" doesn't mean that no one in Oregon is using it. In some cases, such an absence just means that many cities and counties are using that recipe, so there's no point in citing only one example. In other cases, the recipe sounded good, but we weren't able to find anyone who had tried it.

If you need greater detail about these measures, check the Bibliography. It lists publications and organizations that have more information.

Ways To Plan For Effective Citizen Involvement

The best way to have strong citizen involvement in planning is to have strong planning for citizen involvement. In other words, a successful citizen involvement program must be carefully designed and managed.

Establish objectives. Assign responsibilities. Allocate money and staff. Set a schedule. Monitor performance. These are basic steps to successful management of any program. Yet all too often, these steps are forgotten with citizen involvement. For some reason, citizen involvement frequently is not seen as a program to be actively managed. Rather, it is treated as a passive process, one that will somehow happen automatically if a few notices are mailed and a hearing is held.

But citizen involvement doesn't just happen. The most widespread public participation in planning is found in those communities where citizen involvement is planned and managed carefully and aggressively. Here are some of the techniques those communities are using.

• Manage citizen involvement in the same way as code administration or long-range planning -- that is, as a major element of the planning program.

Examples: Eugene, Gresham, Portland, Salem, Douglas County, Washington County . . . . Many cities and counties in Oregon are doing this.

• Draw up a citizen involvement plan for each major legislative action and for land use decisions that involve important community issues.

For all major planning actions, the City of Eugene's planning department assigns a project manager. One of the manager's tasks is to create a work program for citizen involvement for that project. That program must be reviewed and approved by Eugene's Citizen Involvement Committee.

• Use the CCI! The Committee for Citizen Involvement can (and usually should):

- advise planners and policy makers on how to manage citizen involvement for specific projects

- periodically evaluate the citizen involvement program

- work with staff to maintain an effective network of citizen advisory committees

- act as a mediator to resolve disputes about public participation

- act as an ombudsman for citizens concerned about public participation.

Gresham's CCI does all of the above and more. At a May 1991 brainstorming session, for example, the CCI generated a list of several dozen ideas for more effective citizen involvement.

• Staff the citizen involvement program with a professional coordinator from outside the planning department. This arrangement has several advantages. It frees planning staff from citizen involvement duties that might conflict with or take second place to other planning tasks, such as code enforcement. It allows for broader community involvement: citizen concerns are not limited to land use. And the coordinator can serve as a mediator if the planning department and citizen advisory committees disagree about a land use issue.

The City of Gresham has a fulltime citizen involvement coordinator based in the city manager's office.

• Contract for citizen involvement services. Like the independent coordinator described above, a contractor can remain neutral during policy conflicts.

Washington County contracts with the Oregon State University Extension Service to provide support to citizen advisory committees, for land use and other community issues.

• If the planning department runs the citizen involvement program, make sure the responsibility for that is clearly assigned to one or more staff persons. If no one is directly responsible for the CIP, some of that program's tasks are likely to remain undone.

• Develop and use a citizen involvement checklist for the planning staff.

Eugene's planning department has three "templates" -- sets of guidelines for citizen involvement. One is for "low-interest projects." The second is for "high-interest projects." The third deals with projects that involve a combination of public and private funding (a parking structure, for instance).

• Give the planners who deal with the public training in customer relations and communications.

• Give planning staff and members of citizen boards and committees information and training on key topics.

Twice a year (in March and September) the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association teaches an all-day class on how to be an effective planning commissioner. At each session, about 60 commissioners from cities and counties throughout Oregon receive training.

• Use role-playing and simulation exercises to help planners, planning commissioners, and other officials to understand the needs and wants of citizens and interest groups.

Hood River County's planners conduct mock permit applications, to gain a better idea of the view from the other side of the permit counter.

• Maintain a registry of stakeholders, interest groups, and individuals with expertise or interests in important land use topics or areas. Use that registry as a source of contacts when deciding whom to involve in a particular citizen involvement effort. Update the list periodically.

• Appoint a volunteer "ombudsman" or citizen involvement coordinator. The CCI may fill this role. But in communities where an independent CCI is not available, a lay ombudsman may be able to facilitate public participation in the planning program.

• Evaluate the CIP each year, and report the results to the governing body.

Lane County brings together its planning commission, board of commissioners, and citizen committee chairs in an annual meeting to discuss and evaluate the county's citizen involvement program. The Clackamas County CCI evaluates public participation in the county each year and issues a formal report to the Board of Commissioners.

• Earmark funding for citizen involvement in the budget. Goal 1 requires this, and for good reason: it helps make people aware that citizen involvement cannot happen without a commitment of resources, and it protects the CIP.

Clackamas County maintains a Public Affairs Office and staff with their own budget. The county also allocated $6,000 to enhance citizen involvement during the 1991-92 budget year, and it specified that each of the county's 44 community planning organizations would be allocated $200 for "costs of printing, mailing and other special needs that might arise." Roseburg has a line item of $2,500 for neighborhood groups in the city manager's budget; funds for other citizen involvement activities (such as mailing notices) come out of the planning department's budget.

• Seek grants or in-kind services for citizen involvement from government agencies, businesses, service organizations, and philanthropic institutions.

For its "Your Community 2000" project, the City of Bend raised $32,000 from state, city and county governments, recreation districts, private contributors and school districts. Springfield got a $60,000 federal grant to help the city carry out its "Springfield Tomorrow" project.

• Develop and maintain an active network of neighborhood organizations. Make sure the committees continue to receive information about permit applications, policy issues, and major projects, such as revisions to the plan or development codes.

Salem has adopted an ordinance that requires neighborhood associations to be notified about all proposals for quasi-judicial land use decisions and legislative zone changes in their areas. Portland notifies its neighborhood associations about pending land use decisions. Douglas County gives all of its advisory committee members a large packet of information about the county's geography, government, and planning programs. Newberg's planning department sends monthly packets and reports to its citizen advisory committees.

• Provide basic support for citizen advisory committees (including neighborhood groups). Such support usually includes clerical services (photocopying, mailing, and notification), reimbursement for travel costs, and a place for meetings. Although planning staff usually do not attend all meetings of all committees, some staff attendance is essential. Without direction and assistance from staff, committees are likely to wither or to become loose cannons, arguing with local officials over crucial land use issues.

• When seeking members for a key committee such as the CCI, use an open process: publish notices, contact local civic groups, and post announcements. Don't rely on word of mouth or the personal contacts of planners, planning commissioners, or elected officials. Such a casual approach suffers from three drawbacks. First, it often does not generate a sufficient number of candidates. Second, it may cause the makeup of the committees to be too narrow. Finally, it smacks of secrecy and favoritism and may lead to public distrust or criticism of the committee.

• Maintain a list of people who have expressed interest in a particular issue or in serving on a committee. That creates a pool of potential volunteers who can be called when a vacancy on a standing committee needs to be filled or when a new committee needs to be formed.

Baker County's planning department maintains a list of people who have said they are willing to serve on citizen advisory groups such as the county parks committee.

• Give recognition to citizen volunteers.

Grants Pass holds an annual awards dinner to honor leaders and activists from its citizen committees.

Ways To Get Information To The Public

Perhaps the most common complaint from citizens about government is "Nobody told us!" That may frustrate the weary planner who has just spent several weeks and thousands of dollars running legal ads, sending out notices, and organizing a series of public hearings. In spite of such efforts, however, the citizens' complaint may be well-founded. Few people read legal ads. Property owners often overlook or fail to understand formal notices. And public hearings do not impart much information to the public. It takes more than the traditional notice and hearing procedures to truly inform an entire community about a planning issue. Here some ways to make your message heard more widely.

• Mail notices and information to the people most likely to be affected. State law (ORS 196.763), of course, requires that notices about proposed land use decisions be mailed to owners of property around the site of a land use proposal. Those land owners, however, are not necessarily the only people or groups who will be affected by the proposal. And that law does not apply to legislative actions, which may affect people throughout the community. So start by deciding who is most likely to be affected. Then decide what message should be communicated -- a plain English description of how the proposed planning action might affect the community, for example. Then base your mailing on those decisions. Don't overlook the law, but don't use it as the sole standard for your communication effort.

• Post notices about important meetings and proposals in conspicuous places: the library, city hall, courthouse, community centers, and on or near affected properties.

• Prepare notices and information in a language other than English when a land use proposal is likely to affect members of the community for whom English is not their principal language.

• Enhance the readability of documents that will be distributed to the public. Aim for a readability rating of grade level 10 or lower; readability software programs such as RightWriter, Grammatik, or Correct Grammar are available for less than $100. Contract with a writer, editor, or graphics artist to produce documents that invite a reader's attention and communicate more effectively.

• Produce summaries of important documents that are too long or complex to be understood readily by the average citizen.

• Produce plain-English fact sheets or flyers on important issues, and distribute them to citizen committees, interest groups, students, media, and visitors to the planning department.

Douglas County produced an eight-page flyer on wetlands in May, 1991, and distributed it to interested persons and groups throughout the county. The illustrated flyer uses a question-and-answer format to define wetlands and describe how they are managed.

• Produce flyers or booklets that describe processes and procedures such as hearings and appeals.

Eugene's Permit and Information Center distributes the following plain-English flyers: "Land Use Decisions," "Eugene Hearings Official," "Eugene Planning Commission," and "Speak Up" (a guide on how to testify at a public hearing).

• Arrange for local plans, zoning ordinances, and other planning documents to be made available to the public in the local library, city hall, courthouse, and schools.

Before each meeting of its planning commission, the City of Bandon puts a packet of meeting materials in the city library. Anyone can come to the library and see the staff reports and other material that will be considered at the meeting. Washington County provides copies of major planning documents to all libraries in the county's library system.

• Prepare and distribute an annual report that describes the main planning activities and issues of the past year.

Lane County's Land Management Division prepares an annual report to its planning commission.

• Prepare and distribute a list of publications about planning and important local issues. Make it available to reporters, students, citizen activists, and others who want to learn more about land use and the local planning program.

• Develop and maintain a newsletter.

Douglas County's planning department produces a quarterly newsletter that goes to all citizen advisory committees and to other interested persons and groups. The Hood River and Washington County planning departments do the same. Clackamas County produces a monthly newsletter from the board of commissioners' office. Many of its articles deal with issues of planning and citizen involvement.

• Use the newsletters of other groups and agencies as a vehicle for getting information to certain audiences. Contact the newsletter's editor to suggest topics for articles or to arrange for you to submit your own.

The Department of Land Conservation and Development submitted an article about new forestland rules to Northwest Woodlands magazine. That article reached many woodlot owners who might not have heard about the rules through official notices and mailings.

• Hold a contest. For example, to stimulate the public's interest in urban wildlife habitats and natural areas, city planners could sponsor a photo contest. Photos would show wildlife or natural scenery, and would have to be taken at sites within the city limits during the past year.

• Enclose bulletins or fact sheets on planning with local utility billings or other routine mailings made by the city or county.

The Corvallis Planning Department used this method to announce that the city's Land Development Code would be updated.

• Organize a speakers bureau -- a list of planners, local officials, and other well-informed persons willing to speak before service groups, clubs, and classes.

• Work with local service groups, such as the League of Women Voters, Kiwanis, and Rotary. Arrange speakers for them. Distribute relevant notices and publications to them. Seek their help in communicating with the public about large planning efforts such as periodic review.

The City of Silverton's Chamber of Commerce sponsored a forum where several hundred citizens prioritized the growing needs of their city.

• Develop a handbook or pamphlet on citizen involvement, to encourage interested citizens to get involved in planning.

Clackamas County produced a 75-page citizens' guide that explains what the county's citizen involvement program is and how one may participate in it. See Bibliography. Salem's Department of Community Development in 1988 published a 12-page booklet called "Guide To Working With Neighborhood Associations."

• Write a "white paper" or "backgrounder" to explain the reasons behind a controversial policy proposal. The purpose of such a paper is to answer the question "Why?" -- and answer it early. That question eventually may be answered in a staff report or a set of findings. But those documents usually are too late and too legalistic to be useful to the citizen. The white paper helps to shape and inform public opinion about a decision that's going to be made; findings are the defense for a decision already made.

• Set up a citizens' planning information center or display (permanent or temporary) in a public building, shopping mall, or school.

• Set up booths or displays at county fairs, trade fairs, and community festivals.

• Put information on citizen involvement and planning in the material provided by Welcome Wagon, the Chamber of Commerce, and other local service groups.

• Use graphics and audio-visual aids. Television and sophisticated advertising techniques are making the public expect more than typed text. Besides, many planning issues have a strong visual component. Drawings, flip charts, maps, slides, overheads, or video tapes thus may often be more effective than a standard typed report.

Ashland's planning department produced an illustrated booklet, Site Design and Use Guidelines. The 45-page document uses drawings and diagrams effectively to explain complex material.

• Develop a video tape to show permit applicants and citizens how to testify at a public hearing. Set up a television and video recorder to play that tape on demand at the planning office or in the lobby of the building where the public hearing will be held. (This idea comes from Gresham's CCI.)

• Use "telephone trees" to announce important meetings and to relay other simple information. In such a system, the first person places a call to, say, five people. Those five each call another five people. Only three or four such cycles will quickly reach hundreds of people. The tree needs careful planning, however. Otherwise, its branches turn inward, as people call others who have already been called.

• Use computers at the permit counter to make information readily available to citizens and permit applicants.

Lane County has terminals at the main counter in the Land Management Division. With help from a staff person, a permit applicant can key in a few commands and moments later get a screen full of information about a particular piece of land -- its size, zoning, permit status, number of dwellings, etc.

• Arrange site observations, walking tours, or bus tours of key sites and areas for interested citizens and organizations.

Eugene has prepared brochures and maps of historical places, so that citizens can take self-guided walking tours of historical districts. The Lane Council of Governments arranged tours for interested persons to see areas proposed for inclusion in a new wetlands conservation plan.

• Have planners or planning officials teach or guest lecture in local schools, community colleges, or universities.

DLCD's Communications Manager has spoken to a variety of classes, including second- and third-graders, about land use planning. If the material is presented in a simple, graphic way, grade schoolers will understand and be interested in land use issues like urban sprawl and traffic congestion.

• Make and retain a written record not only of findings for quasi-judicial land use decisions (as required by statute) but also for legislative and policy decisions. This enables interested persons to see how and why new regulations or policies were developed.

Ways To Get Information From The Public

If the public's most common complaint is "Nobody told us," then the second most common probably is "You didn't listen." But how can planners and local elected officials listen more effectively? Here are a dozen answers to that question -- twelve ways to receive the public's messages more clearly.

• Hold public hearings. Publicize such hearings widely and mail notices to persons and groups who are likely to have an interest in the topic of the meeting. Note that a public hearing is mainly a way to solicit comment from the public. If information needs to be conveyed to the public, or if an exchange of ideas and information between the public and planners is needed, other types of public meetings are more effective -- townhall meetings and workshops, for example.

• Make the meeting place accessible. See that all public meetings are held in places that have adequate parking and seating and are accessible to handicapped persons.

• Schedule public meetings so as to avoid conflicting events. Such scheduling should take into account traditional vacation months, local or regional sports events, hunting seasons, and other events that might cause many people to be unable to attend.

• Use a checklist for all public meetings. The list should encompass the multitude of seemingly minor details that, if forgotten, can make a meeting a disaster. Such details include, but are by no means limited to, items such as these: number of chairs, sound system, number and type of microphones, timer, sign-up sheets, easel and flip charts, handouts, and audio-visual equipment.

• Mail surveys to a cross-section of the community.

The City of Springfield sent questionnaires to every fourth registered voter in the city as part of its "Springfield Tomorrow" project. The survey asked respondents for their views and priorities on several dozen land use and community planning issues.

• Gather information and views through door-to-door canvassing.

The City of Milwaukie used several dozen high-school students (led by chair persons of local neighborhood groups) to carry out a "Block Walk." The students went door to door to survey residents about community issues and resources. The project was preceded by extensive press coverage.

• Conduct on-site interviews or door-to-door surveys in areas that will be affected by a development proposal, rezoning, or planning decision.

• Provide a "public comment" period at every public meeting of the local planning commission or governing body. Its purpose is to give citizens a chance to speak on topics not already specified on the agenda.

The state's Land Conservation and Development Commission has a public comment period at its regular meetings, usually as the first item on the agenda.

• Conduct "passive surveys" by having questionnaires available in the planning department, public library, city hall, shopping mall, or other public places. Such surveys must be brief, and because their respondents are not selected randomly, the results are not statistically significant. They may, however, provide some useful information and suggestions from the public.

• Invite guest speakers from interest groups or other agencies to make presentations to the planning staff, planning commission, governing body, or citizen advisory committees.

Wasco County invites officials from state agencies to make presentations about state programs that affect the county. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, for instance, made an hour-long slide presentation on big-game winter range to the Wasco County planning commission.

• At townhall meetings, workshops, and brainstorming sessions, use flip charts to build a record. Have someone summarize key points on the charts. Tape each filled-out page on the wall, so the audience can see their comments and ideas. After the meeting, record the notes on 8½-X-11-inch paper, and distribute them to those who attended the meeting.

• Provide a "clipping service" for planning commissioners, elected officials, and chairs of advisory committees. That is, monitor local and regional newspapers for articles, editorials, and letters to the editor about planning issues and citizen involvement. Clip such pieces out of the newspaper and mail them periodically. This service can be done by local staff or by commercial clipping services.

The Department of Land Conservation and Development, through its communications manager and field representatives, monitors several dozen newspapers in Oregon. DLCD staff clip the articles and assemble them in a packet, which is mailed once a week to the Land Conservation and Development Commission and key staff.

Ways To Exchange Ideas And Information With The Public

The most effective communication is more than just sending or receiving messages. It involves an exchange of ideas and information. Such exchanges are essential in our day-to-day relations with friends, spouses, and colleagues. They are, however, difficult to achieve on a community-wide scale. Here are some ways to attack that problem.

• Encourage developers and permit applicants to bring their proposals to neighborhood groups early in the application process. This keeps the citizens informed about issues that may affect their neighborhood, and it enables the developer to respond to citizen concerns early, before much money has been invested in plans, surveys, and permit fees.

When the Kaiser-Permanente Corporation wanted to build a medical center in south Salem, its executives met with local neighborhood groups and talked to all prospective neighbors. Kaiser-Permanente modified their plans so as to satisfy concerns they heard from the neighbors, and then completed the permit and construction process -- without opposition.

• Hold townhall meetings, community forums, or public workshops on important issues and policy proposals. Be aware of the important differences between these types of meetings and a hearing. A hearing is more formal and has a mostly one-way flow of information (from citizens to the hearing officials). The main purpose of a hearing is to reach a decision. In contrast, a townhall, public forum, or workshop is less formal, involves an exchange of ideas and information, and has that exchange (not a decision) as its main purpose.

The City of Coos Bay followed up a community-wide survey with a townhall meeting in 1990. The meeting was broken into smaller working groups, which were asked to list the top five goals for the city. The groups' lists were quite consistent with each other, and the turnout for the meeting was good -- about 200 people, in all.

• Compile a summary of the names and main points of those who participated in public meetings and other activities leading to the development of a new policy. This summary of input will help citizens see how the policy was developed and who contributed to its development. It also may be useful years later if ambiguous wording leads to questions about the intent of the policy.

• When developing new policies, create an ad hoc "task force." The task force usually is made up of people knowledgeable about the pertinent issues and with ties to a wide variety of interests. Task force members thus serve two purposes: they bring information to the process, and they convey information to their network of contacts. A task force also may serve as a neutral party in a controversy if elected officials or planners are perceived to be on one side or the other.

Union County formed an Aggregate Advisory Committee in 1988 to help county officials develop policies on aggregate extraction. The committee had five members -- an "at large" member, and one from each of the following groups: landowners near aggregate sites; aggregate operators; business interests; environmental interests.

• Maintain a temporary 800 telephone number or a special "hotline" to deal with controversial issues likely to generate a great deal of public comment or inquiry.

• Conduct briefings or roundtable discussions with key community leaders and stakeholders. The purpose of such meetings is twofold: to convey ideas and information to community leaders, and to learn their views and interests.

• Conduct a charrette. A charrette is an intensive meeting of a few key stakeholders or community leaders working to hammer out an agreement. It is an effective way of "getting to yes," but it requires a big investment of time by participants, and it usually does not represent a cross-section of the community.

• Strive to provide "procedural satisfaction" to all parties when making decisions. This term comes from the growing literature on alternative dispute resolution. It means the belief that the decision-making process is fair no matter what its outcome.

• Have the public participate in building a vision of the community's future. Such "visioning" is the subject of the recent Oregon Visions Trilogy, written by several Oregon planners. The manual describes the visioning process and explains how Oregon communities can use it. See Bibliography.

The City of Corvallis carried out an extensive visioning process in the late 1980s. Among other things, the city organized workshops, invited a well-known futurist to speak to at a public meeting (attended by some 500 people), and organized a special event called "Children's Visions of the Future." The city also printed and distributed 25,000 copies of a newsprint tabloid containing the Corvallis Vision Statement. The visioning work provided the policy foundation for the city's statutorily required periodic review.

• Follow up: send a summary of new policies and regulations to people and groups who testified or otherwise helped to develop them. This serves two purposes: it conveys information about the new material to key people, and it gives them some sense of ownership in the final product.

• Conduct an open house periodically in the planning department.

• Mail information packets periodically to the chairs of all citizen advisory committees. Such a packet might contain the agendas for coming meetings of boards such as the planning commission, recent applications for development permits, any recent fact sheets or summaries, and clippings of recent planning news.

Newberg's planning department each month sends its neighborhood committee chairs a report summarizing key planning issues and activities.

• Work with local schools and teachers to get students involved in planning. The students learn about land use planning and government; they may produce useful data; and they make their parents more aware of planning issues.

A planner in Maine (Marvin Rosenblum) has started a statewide program called Kids Involved Doing Service. The kids do field work and surveys (on land use, soils, water, traffic) on real development proposals and then present their findings to permit applicants, decision makers, and civic groups. Michael Nagler, Hood River County's planning director, participates in the local high school's annual "Professional Day," telling students about planning. Ben Boswell, a high-school teacher in Wallowa County, has his students learn about planning through role-playing exercises: "You're a planning commissioner; a developer has proposed to build a . . . , etc." Teacher Neal Maine (from Seaside) has developed a coastal resource planning curriculum for high-school students. It's designed to bring science and civics together as students work on actual planning issues.

• Introduce commission members and staff at the beginning of every public meeting of a body such as the planning commission. Explain their role and the purpose of the meeting.

Baker County's planning commission begins each of its meetings by having the chair introduce all commissioners and the planning director.

Suppose, for example, that a county is beginning the periodic review of its comprehensive plan. One way to inform citizens about that is to run a legal notice about the periodic review hearings. But a better way is to work with a local reporter to develop a front-page news article about periodic review. Such an article provides more information and is read by more people, and it's free. Seizing the initiative also has this big advantage: it enables you to get information to the media before any inaccurate or unbalanced coverage occurs.

Remember, if you don't tell your own story, someone else will tell it for you. Here are some ways to see that your story gets told first.

• Issue news releases and public service announcements (PSA's). Even small planning agencies can use this technique. News releases can be written and distributed quickly, and the media will often use them almost word for word -- if they contain something newsworthy and are written in the appropriate style. PSA's are news releases for radio stations, written so that they can read on the air in 15 to 30 seconds. For the basics on writing news releases and PSA's, see the Oregon Media Guide listed in the bibliography.
  

• Designate a staff person to be the planning department's "information officer." Assign to him or her the responsibility for working with the media and for trying to generate informative stories about important planning issues and programs.

• Distribute a "press packet" to local and regional media annually and to new reporters assigned to the local government beat. Such a packet contains basic information about the planning department and the community's planning program. The packet serves two purposes: it reminds the media about your program and its important work, and it provides background information that the media may need when they do a story about your agency.

• Have the planning director or other key officials appear on local radio or television talk shows.

Michael Nagler, planning director for Hood River County, frequently appears on a Saturday morning radio talk show to discuss current planning issues and respond to calls from the public. Linda Gray, Washington County's citizen involvement coordinator, appeared on Metro Access Cable TV's "Public Affairs Forum" to talk about the county's citizen involvement program.

• Hold a news conference. This may sound intimidating, but it doesn't require a great deal of time or special skills. The main requirement is to have something newsworthy as the subject of the conference. If a television station is to be invited, try to arrange a site for the conference that has some visual interest. To announce the start of a new program for protecting historical places, for example, arrange to have the news conference in a historical building.

• Arrange to have important public meetings televised on the local community access cable television channel.

CCTV (Channel 34) "cablecasts" the meetings of the Salem city council live and rebroadcasts them on Sundays.

• Use community access cable television to produce special shows about planning issues.

The City of Portland produced a television show about the Albina Neighborhood Plan, using Portland Cable Access Television.

• Write guest "op/ed" (opinion and editorial) pieces for the local newspaper.

The Springfield News ran a guest editorial from city officials encouraging citizens to participate in the "Springfield Tomorrow" project.

• Call the editor of the local newspaper and suggest news articles or editorials about important planning issues and activities. Don't assume that the media automatically are fully informed about all planning issues and activities that are important to the community. Without your call, the matter may not be reported, or it may be reported incorrectly.

• Arrange to have meetings and hearings announced in the local calendar of events maintained by most newspapers and radio stations.

Hillsboro's planning commission meetings are announced in the Hillsboro Argus's community calendar. The Argus publishes its calendar once a week. Information to be published in the calendar must be submitted a week in advance. A typical announcement contains about 30 words. The newspaper does not charge for this service.

• For issues and activities of community-wide importance, use display ads in the local newspaper rather than legal ads. Legal ads are required in some cases, but sometimes the only reason for their use is tradition. Most citizens do not read legal ads, and for good reason: they are printed in small type in an obscure section of the newspaper, and often are written in a legalistic, hard-to-read style. If you really want to reach the public, don't rely on legal ads.

The City of Coos Bay produces a quarterly newsletter, which is printed and distributed as an insert in the Coos Bay World. Metro (the Portland Metropolitan Service District) routinely publishes its public meeting agendas as display ads in the Oregonian.

• Arrange for notices, flyers, or other information to be delivered as an insert in the local newspaper. This "print and deliver" service is useful for getting information to a certain part of the community. The inserts can be placed in only those newspapers to be delivered in the northwest part of a city, for example. In most cases, such inserts will be cheaper than a display ad.

• Conduct surveys or questionnaires through the local media.

The City of Springfield used a clip-and-return questionnaire printed in the Springfield News and the Eugene Register Guard to survey citizens as part of the "Springfield Tomorrow" project in 1991.

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