3.4 STORMWATER TASK FORCE/STAKEHOLDER PROCESS

The stormwater task force is made up of a cross-section of interested citizens who will meet regularly to consider the stormwater management program. There are many advantages to this approach to public awareness:

• Information can be distributed to a smaller group, and the message provided can be tested on this group before distribution to the public at large.
• If the group is made up of stakeholder members, then municipal managers can receive feedback on public opinion quickly.
• Stormwater management ideas can be tested in a small forum well before ill-conceived ideas are brought before the public-at-large.
• Once consensus has been reached with the task force, the task force members themselves become advocates and maybe champions of the program.
• The task force process offers knowledgeable public input that can be incorporated into the overall plan. Such input reflects positively for media and public discussions.

One of the more effective methods of implementing the stormwater task force is the stakeholder process. Stakeholders are public, commercial, governmental, and organizational entities that will be affected by the stormwater management program (both by benefits and costs). The more representative the members are of the real stakeholders, the better the chance of meaningful consideration of alternatives. Also, it is important that all of the stakeholders be invited to participate.

The importance of the selection of stakeholders cannot be minimized. Members of the stakeholder committee should not be appointed by elected officials, nor should they be elected officials. In both cases, the public at large, as well as other stakeholders (commercial, industrial and environmental), need to believe that the stakeholder process is fully representative of their desires. Elected officials and appointed members by elected officials are not perceived to be representative. Stakeholders can be elected by their constituency; for example, a homeowners association can elect a representative. The above caution simply means that an elected official should not appoint someone from the homeowners association to represent them.

A key element of the stakeholder process is the facilitator. A facilitator is a person who will provide organization to the consensus building process and help the task force move toward consensus. The facilitator should not be a stakeholder; this means that the municipal stormwater group should not provide the facilitator. Otherwise, the stakeholders will believe that the facilitator has secret motives and that the process will be biased. Thus the facilitator must be knowledgeable in the subject area but, at the same time, not a stakeholder.

The actual stakeholder process should start with two areas of consensus. First, the stakeholders must agree with the process and be sufficiently representative to make decisions. The overall process will not succeed if, during stakeholder meetings, one member agrees to the consensus but in the end, withdraws and does not back the results. That is, the stakeholders must honestly comment on the materials reviewed and discussed, and the facilitator must be open to dissent. Second, the stakeholders must define the goals of the stormwater program that is being discussed. In fact the first meeting, or set of meetings, should define the list of program goals and expectations. While this list will be modified as the stakeholder process enfolds, the fundamental list of selection criteria for consensus must be defined early in the process.

The rest of the stakeholder process includes periodic meetings to discuss elements of the stormwater management and funding program, including draft public information documents and summaries of stormwater management needs. Such meetings should not be too demanding or often since stakeholders must be in attendance to achieve a meaningful consensus. The meetings should be formally documented with decisions made and future action items clearly highlighted. Also, to help the public-at-large buy into the process, periodic newsletters, describing the stakeholders' progress, can be distributed by the municipality.

During, and at the end of the process as consensus is reached, the stakeholders should become elements of the community acceptance program. Stakeholders who have recognized the benefits of the selected stormwater management program can educate the group they represent and can present the list of benefits to elected officials. It is at this stage of the process at which insincere stakeholders or incomplete stakeholder representation can become damaging to the overall program. Periodic newsletters documenting the progress of the stakeholder process can help overcome this type of difficulty. Such newsletters can also recognize the commitment of the members and the achievements of the committee.