FAN Outreach Discussion

21

The Calendar and Google Drive are indeed owned by a general gmail account for the organization, and not anyone’s personal account.

This particular toolkit - the Dev Guide, was started by Natalie, on her personal Gmail/Drive account because it was a project she wanted to spearhead and that’s where she found it easiest to do so.

And again, this Dev Guide is not an official FAN tool or initiative yet, but will probably be adopted and publicized as such once completed. Natalie would like for it to be adopted as one, but she’s still working on the process of finding collaborators or help where she can - it just happens that the Board of FAN and it’s founding members also have a lot of experience there, so she reached out to them, and in this forum for input to her project.

As a Board we agree, to some extent, that having content to provide to people looking to navigate the planning processes in Austin would be a great resource to increase exposure to the overall mission of including people who have historically not had a voice in these kinds of processes. The bar to do so is mostly the time commitment needed to wade through even finding the bureaucratic steps to including your voice. Natalie and other contributors believe this tool could help lower that bar.

As individuals, the Board supports Natalie, as an organization, we haven’t adopted or publicized the tool yet as it’s still in progress. When completed, it could definitely increase our Outreach efforts.

There is still a lot of confusion around how the discussion forum is used.

We ask that forum users or readers not confuse the personal opinions or projects of general members or Board reps for those of FAN.

As an organization, we like fostering the kinds of conversations and ideas around how to make these processes more inclusive and facilitating collaborators to join forces. But if it’s not official FAN business, the organization doesn’t have a lot of input or logistical prowess.

In this particular case Chad, if you’d like to help Natalie organize resources on Austin City Planning & Zoning from a neighborhood or individual perspective, please do reach out to her, and we’ll help connect you in any way possible. If you’d like to take some responsibility in also leading the project I’m sure she’d love the collaboration.

Do you have experience working with the City on Development or Zoning projects in the past?

22

Thanks Alyshalynn, but that’s an overly-broad canvas for my motion to address.

Can we just whip up that public-viewable folder now, and keep everything we’re going to invite the public to look at inside it? I could do it in 10 seconds. You’ll agree that if folks can find and view the dang documents, especially when invited to look at them, then I’m sure we’ll enjoy the fruits of wider collaboration. With the volunteer’s time at a premium, it won’t do to expect everyone to individually ask for read permission.

And if you hate the idea, let’s discuss reasons instead of writing expositions and watching things peter out.

23

The reason this got over-broad is because you’re essentially starting another conversation entirely on the topic of transparency.

I completely understand your crusade for transparency of official FAN business. I promise I am and everyone on the board of FAN are with you on that bandwagon. This particular discussion post in here the forum is focused on the project of a DEV Plan Toolkit Natalie is heading up. That toolkit could be, when completed, part of a broader scope to increase awareness of FAN.

How about you start another top-level thread with your concerns on transparency. I agree that a conversation would be fruitful on the topic and that’s why I’m engaging you here.

Then continue to reach out to Natalie here in this thread about how you can contribute to this tool effectively so as not to hijack this conversation on outreach tools.

I’ve been trying to point out the differences here between official FAN documents, that are fully integrated and adopted by the organization, and other documents started by individuals asking for input on a project they’re heading up. This Dev Plan project in particular is only partly official, and it includes little to no subjective information. It’s an aggregation of publicly available links, email addresses, and outlines of actions to take when interacting with city government on planning issues. There’s no benefit of keeping this plan opaque. And if you find it so, I hope you can collaborate more closely with Natalie to address your concerns.

FAN is happy to have this kind of passive meeting place for collaboration and discussion. Although this is a public forum - Anyone can post an idea or ask for help, be it for official FAN business, or for projects of their own. FAN can certainly try, but won’t be able to actively facilitate every project or idea posted here. If you want to offer your help to grow one of those projects, please reach out to that project leader and handle those collaboration efforts on your own.

24

Yeah, give me edit access to that document, please. I have URLs to resources listed there. Thanks!

25

@ChadV In addition to Alysha’s request to start a new thread on your concerns about transparency, I am posting to kindly remind you to be mindful of the time our volunteers contribute, and be respectful when posting in response to anyone.

I’ve read your responses in this thread a couple times, and I think there are several comments that aren’t constructive, or are dismissive of additional information.

If you are frustrated, that’s okay. However, please keep in mind that volunteers leading projects may have a different perspective, or maybe they are just busy with other things. For example, I haven’t posted minutes from the Board meeting on Monday – because I’ve just been busy with other things. That’s not evidence of a lack of transparency.

I find a few questions to be helpful in situations like these:

  1. How would I feel if I someone talked to me that way?
  2. What do I want, and how is the best way to get what I want?

Regardless of how you answer those questions, please be nice.

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26

Hold on now. I reject the labels “frustrated” and “crusade” being slung at me.

I also view the narrative that I’m being ungrateful of the volunteers and seeking to waste their time as a construction which I’ve done nothing to contribute to. My idea IS A TIME SAVER.

If I got off topic, ok. Why not just say that instead of… 27 paragraphs of exposition, which seem, almost carefully, to avoid answering the question I had put?

I started a new topic. There’s no more we need to say here.

27

@ChadV My mistake. You are not frustrated. However, the larger point stands: You are making comments that I don’t find to be respectful of other people on the forum.

That’s why I’m reminding you to be nice.

28

For the record, I don’t think a crusade for transparency is at all misguided given the environment of neighborhood inclusion up until now. I’m behind it even!

I don’t think anything here was necessarily disrespectful, and my loquaciousness comes from the perspective of explaining, not just to you Chad, but to everyone reading (where not everyone may understand the context) the protocol of interacting with the organization vs individuals.

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