Vancouver, meet democracy.
That shouldn’t mean just dividing into two teams and the bigger one wins. Supposedly, democracy means the people have the power, study the issues, solve the problems.
That’s where local institutions like libraries come in. Nobody is better situated to explore issues, engage experts, inform the public — and facilitate the resulting exchange of ideas and opinions.
“The public library is really a hub for community engagement,” said Vancouver Community Library branch manager Jackie Spurlock. “We don’t just give out information. We offer a place where people can come together and … maybe hear different viewpoints, particularly as they relate to our own community.
“We’re neutral. We believe in having all viewpoints represented,” Spurlock said.
After a hiatus of five years, the Forum @ the Library is back. Yes, that’s the new text-speak name: the Forum “@” the Library. “It’s just an update,” said Spurlock.
The Forum will be a quarterly public affairs discussion “in a spirit of respect and discovery,” according to the library. Experts will lead things off but the main point is to get the public actively engaged, Spurlock said. The library’s new Forum partner is Washington State University Vancouver and its Institute for Public Deliberation — a program launched last year by political science professor Carolyn Long.
Housing up first
The first topic will be “Affordable Housing: Personal Problem, Community Problem, or Not My Problem?” It’ll be broken into separate parts on the first two Thursdays in March, both from 7 to 8:30 p.m.:
• March 3: Experts. Panelists including a city government official, a homeless advocate, an infill housing redeveloper and others will share a variety of viewpoints on the root causes of our affordable housing problem.
• March 10: Public discussion in small groups. Given the previous week’s input, explore various viewpoints via a predetermined set of open-ended questions designed to raise awareness and broaden understanding.
Both events will take place in the Columbia Room at the Vancouver Community Library, 901 C St. Visit http://new.fvrl.org/forum-library to learn more and register to attend.
The previous Forum paused for five years because library staff was busy setting up shop in the new building — but also because public attendance was starting to sag, Spurlock said. Spurlock and Long are determined to get people more involved and engaged this time around, they both said.
“We don’t want people to just absorb information and go home. There is an important problem with a lot of community interest. People should feel like they are part of creating answers,” Spurlock said.
Long launched that new Initiative for Public Deliberation at WSUV almost exactly one year ago. It’s a program aimed at training students to be unbiased meeting facilitators. The whole effort was announced with significant fanfare as a return to civility and respectful conversation at a time when the local political scene was particularly fractious and angry. (Some would say the political scene, both local and national, remains just as fractious and angry now.)
Six student-facilitated forums — about affordable housing — were held in different parts of Clark County. There was a report after each one and a final “major report,” Long said.
Did anyone ever see it? The participants got copies, she said. The public in general — and decision-making bodies like the Vancouver City Council — did not. (Three members of the Vancouver City Council who attended forums would have received individual copies, she said.)
The biggest picture
Meanwhile, the Vancouver City Council convened a task force and got busy developing new policies. New protections for vulnerable tenants were made law last fall; new incentives for affordable housing developers are being considered now.
Long acknowledged that the public deliberation process was great for her students and interesting for those who showed up — “But whether it made a difference, I have no idea,” she said. “One of the things we struggled with was getting the report out. I don’t think the public really saw it.”
You can see it now at https://foley.wsu.edu/research/ipd.
But even while the city has worked the problem at a practical level, Long said, these forums are designed to step back and consider the biggest picture, the deepest roots of the dilemma and those divergent public attitudes — like “everybody’s problem” versus “not my problem.” She has worked to train library staff as neutral facilitators too, she said.
“We understand that affordable housing has been addressed in the city’s work,” she said. “This particular event is looking at it from a different lens: root causes.”
After this, the next “Forum @” topic will probably be local foods and the food system, presented sometime this summer, Spurlock said. Details are forthcoming.
