3.2 PUBLIC AWARENESS PLAN

The first step in public acceptance is the preparation of a plan. As noted above, there may be many stormwater management issues to be considered, some of which are not interesting to the public or which are not high priorities for the public. The purpose of the public awareness plan is to assess the stormwater needs of the public and determine the best approach to address those needs through education and public involvement, thus leading to acceptance. It should be noted that a stakeholder committee or stormwater task force (see Section 3.2.5) could help formulate the public awareness and acceptance plan by identifying proponents and opponents and issues of concern.

3.2.1 Public Involvement Team

The community acceptance program may be thought to be the sole responsibility of the public information director. If such a staff member does not exist, some may think that the department that administers the stormwater program is solely responsible. In reality, proper community acceptance programs require the involvement of many individuals and departments within a municipal government. The basic and required team consists of municipal staff including the department that provides stormwater services, the public information department, utility billing and computer information groups, and municipal management. This team will prepare the plan, evaluate the stormwater needs of the community, and ultimately implement the public awareness process.

Sometimes the community acceptance team may involve partnerships with other agencies (e.g., state or regional), which can provide resources. These partnerships can lead to a consistency of the message that can be important in establishing or maintaining credibility.

Added to this team might be a stormwater task force that includes members of special interest groups or the public at large. This task force can help prepare the plan and distribute information. The need and makeup of such a task force are discussed in more detail below in Section 3.2.5.

3.2.2 Assessing Community Needs

One of the first efforts of the public involvement team is to assess the stormwater needs and desires of the community. Some of the needs of the community may seem obvious as measured by previous commission or council meetings, newspaper articles, or even complaints. Sometimes, there are municipal needs that the public might embrace if they knew about them. Also, as noted previously, the need for the stormwater services will drive the acceptance of the new fees or assessments. Therefore, the assessment of stormwater needs is very important and must be defined early on in the planning process. For these reasons, a separate Section 3.3 is provided below for considering methods of determining community needs.

3.2.3 Mission Statement

Once the overall needs for the stormwater program are identified, the public awareness team can define a mission statement. The mission statement is not for the public acceptance program; it is for the stormwater management program: what is the mission of the stormwater management program to be provided using the new funding source? This mission statement will be the focus of the awareness program, even leading to a theme statement or short motto.

There are many documents discussing methods to develop a mission statement. The mission statement must be specific to the community and must concisely define the goals of the stormwater management program. The mission statement cannot be "taken off the shelf" from another community's stormwater program and should not just reflect the core purpose of stormwater services within the community. For example, the statement "We will improve stormwater flooding and improve water quality," can be used by any stormwater program in Florida, and therefore, has little meaning.

Statements such as:

"We will measurably improve the quality of our city's lakes within 10 years," or
"We will eliminate all flooding to the 10-year, 24-hour level of service for the entire city,"

are very specific and can be used to define specific actions.

Once the goals are defined and a mission statement prepared, it is important to identify the critical success factors. Critical success factors (in other terms, threats and opportunities) are the elements of the overall program that are critical to the success of the mission. The public awareness team needs to consider the factors that are threats to achieving community acceptance and define a program that will turn them into opportunities. For example, critical success factors are usually stated in the form "We must ...." For the mission statement phrase provided above, critical success factors could be:

• "We must define the pollution contributing to our lakes within 5 years."
• "We must control agricultural sediment runoff to our lakes."
• "We must replace broken pipes in the downtown area."

These phrases have tangible and achievable consequences which the public can embrace and which the public may want. In fact, the goals should reflect public input. Positive support of certain programs may already be available in a community and such opportunities need to be promoted. The support from environmental advocacy groups, for example, can be used to help promote the new pollution control services available through a new funding source. Also, volunteer groups (e.g., lake level monitors) not only involve the public, but also conserve funding for other projects and generate interest in stormwater management.

3.2.4 Champions

Experience has shown that to implement a stormwater utility, the program must have one or more champions. A "champion" can be defined as someone who, when the going gets tough, will stand up and lead. A champion keeps the process moving even when elected officials or the public provide obstacles. This means that, within the municipality, the champion must be senior management (e.g., city manager or county administrator) or an elected official.

Another way to champion the stormwater management program and supporting stormwater utility fee or assessment is through third-party endorsements. Although not as critical as an internal champion, third-party endorsements can indicate to an elected body or to the public that there is already a measure of community support for the stormwater program.

3.2.5 Stormwater Task Force

Although not required in all cases, a stormwater task force may be helpful in implementing a public acceptance program, and even in the formulation of the public acceptance program itself. The task force can be composed of a representative of the local government (generally a champion), as well as representatives from local interest groups and from the public at large. The most effective type of task force is composed of stakeholders, those individuals or representatives of groups that will be affected by the new program. Since a stormwater utility fee can affect all elements of a community, stakeholders may include home, apartment and condominium owners; commercial and industrial properties; other governments; and schools and other institutional entities. To be effective, the stakeholder committee members should not be appointed by other stakeholders, including the local government. The benefits of this approach include the ability to provide thorough education of a small group; to gain meaningful and complete input on public issues; to test broad public opinion in a small, controlled setting; and to create knowledgeable spokes people for the program once consensus has been reached.

Since the stakeholder process is a very useful method for community acceptance, further details about the process have been provided in Section 3.4 below.

3.2.6 Public Information Targets

When informing the public about the stormwater management program and potential fees or assessments, educational materials must be targeted toward specific groups to improve receptivity. Generally there are three categories of targets. The first category includes the elected officials, who can be considered to be the first level of the public. Education on the stormwater program and its financial needs must be provided to the elected officials with sufficient detail for officials to approve implementation. The elected officials may also make speeches and receive phone calls from constituents with questions. Information must be sufficient to provide them with the answers they need.

The second category includes opinion leaders and focus groups. Homeowner associations, Chambers of Commerce, environmental interest and advocacy groups fall into this category. Normally each group has a particular interest (e.g., localized flooding) so that the information presented should be tailored. For example, an environmental advocacy group may not be interested in how maintenance will be improved but will be interested in elements of the program that could improve surface water quality. Also, through normal meetings and mailings, information targeted to these groups can be provided to group members, thereby increasing the distribution of the information at no cost to the municipal government.

After the elected officials and the opinion leaders, the final category is the public at large. Distribution of information can be expensive because of the number of customers or means of distribution. Furthermore, the public may have multiple interests, some of which may be competing (e.g., lake levels high enough for waterfront property versus lake levels low enough for flood protection). Therefore, information for the public at large may be through media with a large distribution and should be more general in nature.

This identifies another category of information targets: the news media. The news media includes newspapers and local television and radio stations. The goal of news media is generally not the disseminating of information but the fostering of interest. News media are also interested in fairness, so both sides of an issue, if available, are presented. For these reasons, the news media is a focus group in itself and requires special treatment.

3.2.7 Two-way Dialogue

Heretofore, the discussion has been directed to the dissemination of information to, and the education of, the public. However, a successful community acceptance program involves two-way communication: the public needs an avenue to provide a meaningful dialogue with municipal staff and elected officials documenting goals, interests, and needs. Therefore, the community acceptance plan should include an element of two-way dialogue, and offer specific opportunities for the public involvement team, stormwater task force and elected officials to listen, and respond, to public issues.

Once public concerns have been expressed and needs have been met through the stormwater management program, the team needs to provide feedback to the public, highlighting those areas where public input has helped shape the stormwater program. The public acceptance program, for this reason, does not end with the adoption of the utility ordinance and collection of the first fees. Program success stories regarding the use of the new revenues must also be communicated.

3.2.8 Additional Data Needs for the Public Information Program

As part of the community acceptance program plan, it was noted earlier that the community stormwater needs must be sufficiently identified. In fact, before the public and elected officials begin to hear and respond to the community acceptance program, the public information team needs to "do their homework." Responding to questions from elected officials, news media, or the public at large with inadequate research or incomplete information can, at times, harm the credibility of the program. Therefore, a part of the plan prepared by the Public Information Team would include a list of information needed to properly answer potential questions. The list can be prepared by comparing the message with the stormwater program needs and the public information targets. This list will be expanded during public meetings.

3.2.9 Public Information Schedule of Activities

The final step in the community acceptance plan is to prepare a schedule of activities. The schedule should provide multiple opportunities for public input and education but only after proper research has been completed. The rule of thumb is the earlier the public contact, the better.