"Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
"no matter how cynical you get, it's hard to keep up"
-- Lily Tomlin
related pages:
The "WEC" is a committee set up in 2007 ostensibly to look at solutions to West Eugene traffic and land use issues. It is composed of friends of Mayor Kitty Piercy, selected business elites, some governmental staff and elected officials (City, County, State, BLM). The Osprey Group consultants are the facilitators of their meetings. No neighborhood associations from west Eugene are participants, and no environmentalists who opposed the Crandall Arambula worse version of the WEP were allowed to participate.
see the map prepared by the Collaborators at:
http://wiki.eugeneneighbors.org/w/images/d/da/WEC_design_storming_map-focus_area-combined-200801315b.jpg
"transit on WEP route"
The graphic is hard to read, and certainly not a final proposal, but looks like some people didn't learn from previous mistakes.
Crandall Arambula was the 2002 proposal to reroute the WEP and build 10 1/2 miles of roadway (ODOT wanted 5 1/2 miles). It would have gone through more wetlands, more forest, farms, homes and would have cost more than ODOT's version. Federal highway law prohibits building federal aid transportation projects through parks if there is a "prudent and feasible" alternative, and requires that the least damaging alternative be selected if parkland is involved. Offering an alleged alternative with greater damage merely makes one look stupid in court, it does not help prevent anything other than sanity.
No wonder that Kitty Piercy refused to protect the City of Eugene owned properties as parkland now the WEP is supposedly dead, since that protection would also block a federally funded bus route through parklands, as shown on the map of the "collaborators."
It is not a surprise that the West Eugene Collaborators didn't want anyone in their clique who actively opposed the 2002 effort to sell out the WEP campaign, since there would be vocal opposition to paving an express bus route through the wetlands (which makes no ecological or transportation sense).
It seems likely that rising oil prices are going to make these sorts of endless planning processes moot in the near future. The money wasted on the Collaborators would be better spent thinking about how the region will cope with oil rationing and other emergencies caused by the end of cheap oil.
http://wiki.eugeneneighbors.org/wiki/West_Eugene_Collaborative
page maintained by Kevin Matthews, Friends of Eugene, about the WEC
(Friends of Eugene is the only environmental group that was allowed to be part of the WEC)
www.odrc.state.or.us/WestEugeneForum.php
West Eugene Collaborative
Purpose Statement:
Develop an integrated land use and transportation solution supported by stakeholders that will facilitate movement of people and commerce from/through/to west Eugene and west of Eugene while enhancing community, business and the environment.
"Stakeholder" is a public relations term that is a substitute for "citizen," technically, a "stakeholder" is a person who holds the "stakes" (bets) of a gambler in a casino. Perhaps it is a subtle way to acknowledge that citizens who participate in these sort of governmental planning processes are gambling that their concerns might be taken seriously.
There is no definition of who constitutes an interest group (or "stakeholder" or "survey stake holder"). If it only refers to the membership of the WEC, then it excludes the neighborhood organizations of West Eugene (groups officially recognized by the City of Eugene). There does not seem to be any interest at the WEC in addressing the serious energy crises that Peak Oil is going to have on the region's functioning - planning how to build more roads and/or bus lines without looking at energy shortages is an enormous missed opportunity.
The only groups represented at WEC that have membership beyond a handful of people are all pro-WEP business interests. There is no grassroots community or environmental representation.
www.designcommunity.com/pipermail/wec/2007-October/000026.html
PIERCY Kitty Kitty.PIERCY at ci.eugene.or.us
Tue Oct 9 09:39:37 PDT 2007
The council last night supported both staff and funding of $40,000 for
the WEC. The vote 6-2, with Bonny and Betty as no votes. Bonny wanted
a designated railroad advocate on the WEC before saying yes. She once
again stated that the WEC was just the same old people, not enough
environmental activists, too agency heavy, not balanced, not
accountable, not enough detail re workplan, and so forth. Betty just
agreed to support Bonny. Everyone is interested in regular check-ins
and benchmarks.
Kitty Piercy
Mayor
http://wiki.eugeneneighbors.org/wiki/WEC_members
has a complete list of WEC members
WEC members - April 2008
33 members total, including:
13 government members (10 are unelected bureaucrats, 3 are elected officials)
4 "facilitators" who work for government
4 "community" representatives who don't live in west Eugene
5 representatives listed as "environment," but none represent any grassroots efforts with significant membership (and two promoted building Crandall Arambula worse version of the WEP)
Allcott, John Preferred Futures Environment
anti-WEP, "Preferred Futures" is a project of Dr. Allcott, no website or other material seems to be available
In 2002 Dr. Allcott offered $4,000 to have the WETLANDS alternative professionally analyzed but that offer was withdrawn and subsequently forgotten after Mary O'Brien found out about it.
Shortly after this withdrawal, a series of private mediation sessions were held at Dr. Allcott's home between anti-WEP activists and those who had promoted the Crandall Arambula worse version of the WEP (Mary O'Brien, Rob Zako, Rob Handy). These took place several times throughout the fall of 2002, but none of these professionally mediated sessions resulted in any explanations as to why the sponsors of the worse WEP version sabotaged a group agreement to oppose the highway and had publicly proclaimed support for an option that violated basic common sense (especially since their proposal would have gone through the Royal Blue Organic blueberry farm, owned by friends and colleagues of Ms. O'Brien). You can't make this stuff up if you try.
A year later, Dr. Allcott asked Mark Robinowitz to volunteer time and energy to help a friend of his (who he was presumably paying) to examine how to build commercial facilities in the Union Pacific railyards should they ever be abandoned by the railroad (an action that Dr. Allcott claimed would somehow prevent the WEP from being built). Dr. Allcott also suggested that he was interested in a fundraising campaign to protect wetlands from the WEP, and was surprised to learn that nearly all of the natural areas directly threatened by highway construction were already in the public domain.
Medicine and political / legal action require different skills -- being good at one does not automatically mean that one is expert at the other.
Ban, Susan social justice Community
appointed to the LTD board by the State legislature
Bellows, Scott Dispute Resolutions Facilitator
Crinklaw, Rick Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce Business
Mr. Crinklaw is the manager of the Lane Electric Co-op
Donald, Dennis The Osprey Group Facilitator
paid consultant to the WEC
Duncan, Rick Eugene Planning Commission Business
Gardner, Lisa Eugene Planning Government
Gaydos, Gerry Lane Transit District Board of Directors Government
pro-WEP
Hallmark, Elaine Oregon Consensus Program Facilitator
state government
Huyler, John The Osprey Group Facilitator
paid consultant to the WEC
Inerfeld, Rob Eugene Public Works Government
Ingham, Ric City of Veneta Government
Johnston, Pat West Eugene Wetlands Partnership Environment
actually "Government" (Ms. Johnston works for the BLM)
Kahle, Don at-large Community
pro-WEP (wrote an op-ed for the Register Guard recommending a four lane WEP plus an express bus lane), no known representation of any "community" interests
Mahaffie, Bill USF Reddaway Business
trucking company
Matthews, Kevin Friends of Eugene Environment
Friends of Eugene is the only environmental organization representated at the WEC. It has a small board and little (if any) membership. Disclaimer: Mark Robinowitz was kicked off a legal committee examining WEP issues that was paid for through Friends of Eugene after opposing initial plans for the Crandall Arambula worse version of the WEP.
Moore, Ed Oregon Dept. of Land Conservation and Development Government
Noble, Deborah at-large Environment
treasurer of Friends of Eugene, major donor to Mayor Piercy's election campaigns and other liberal causes (the Register Guard states she donates more to liberal political campaigns than anyone else in Eugene)
O'Brien, Mary at-large Environment
primary instigator of the collaborative, primary promoter of Crandall Arambula worse version of the WEP
Piercy, Kitty Eugene Mayor Government
Proudfoot, Emily Eugene Public Works Government
Pryor, Chris Eugene City Council Government
pro-WEP
Reed, Larry transportation planning Business
pro-WEP
Rexius, Rusty west Eugene business owner Business
formerly pro-WEP, is not now - his "Rexius" business markets itself as "sustainable solutions" yet emits vast amounts of dust into west Eugene's air and has a large fleet of delivery trucks (using a blend of petroleum diesel and biodiesel is not "sustainable")
Roberts,
Jack Lane Metro Partnership Business
a quasi governmental entity that is somewhere in-between government and business
Schwetz, Tom Lane Transit District Government
Snowden, Ollie Lane County Public Works Government
Stewart, Faye Lane County Commission Government
family's money comes from clearcutting old growth forests
Thompson, Paul Lane Council of Governments Government
Welsh, Jim Eugene Association of Realtors Business
Wildish, Gary Chambers Construction Business
builds roads
Wolling, Sue alternative modes of transportation Community
Wostmann, Jan Neighborhood Leaders Council Community
only neighborhood group representation, lives in the easternmost section of Eugene (Laurel Hill)
Zako, Rob at-large Environment
primary creator of Crandall Arambula worse WEP alternative, defended it after other supporters had withdrawn their support for it, not a representative of any "environment" interests.
www.designcommunity.com/pipermail/wec/2008-March/000110.html
[WEC] Tomorrow's agenda
Don Kahle
Fri Mar 14 15:56:24 PDT 2008
I agree with Jan's suggestion and appreciate his attention to the
matter.
On a separate topic, if we are confident that our editing of choices
will be robust and our process thus far has been to get as many
choices as possible on the table, is there any downside to adding Mark
Robinowitz's WETLANDS proposal to the mix at this point "in toto" --
as if he and his collaborators were a fourth group yesterday? Or are
we hoping that our year together has prompted us to self-censor our
proposals? (Maybe that's legitimate -- I don't know.)
I don't really know the answer to my question. I fear one way we might
be dismissed down the road could be that we failed to propose and then
evaluate an "outside" solution with the same rigor as we used for our
own designs.
Just a thought. See y'all tomorrow.
dk
| City of Eugene Neighborhood Groups were excluded |
There are eight neighborhood organizations -- officially recognized by the City of Eugene -- that are in the area of west Eugene that the "Collaborative" is looking at for road, transit and zoning changes. None of them were invited to be part of the WEC, although after a year of criticism about this exclusion the WEC may be willing to consider a more inclusionary approach.
Active Bethel Citizens, Churchill Area Neighbors, Far West Neighborhood Association, Jefferson Westside Neighbors, River Road Community Organization,
Trainsong Neighbors,
West Eugene Neighborhood Association, and Whiteaker Community Council would all be directly impacted by any WEC decisions that become adopted policies.
A co-chair of the Neighborhood Leaders Council is part of the WEC, but he lives in the easternmost part of the City. One of the other neighborhood associations has told this writer that he has not provided detailed feedback (or requested detailed input) about what the WEC is doing. While these issues are city wide and regional in their scope, excluding west Eugene citizens from this process suggests either gross incompetence or a duplicitous agenda -- neither of which are acceptable or democratic.
www.designcommunity.com/pipermail/wec/2008-February/000085.html
[WEC] Inviting select people to join us in our 'design storming'?
Jan Wostmann
Thu Feb 21 13:26:03 PST 2008
There seems to be some agreement about involving neighborhood
associations. I think this is important because, with the departure of
Charles Snyder, there are no representative of any of the neighborhood
associations in the W 11th corridor. Here is contact information for the
leaders of each of the neighborhood associations in that part of town, for
consideration by the committee.
[note: this message only referenced four of the eight directly impacted neighborhood organizations, but even those four were not invited to participate]
[note: the City of Eugene's website generates excessively long, gibberous sounding web links to reference important pages. Before the website was overhauled by the last set of consultants, weblinks on the City's website were short and easy to remember.]
www.eugene-or.gov/portal/server.pt?
space=CommunityPage&control=SetCommunity&CommunityID=230&PageID=368
This site provides information on the 19 Neighborhood Associations and 2 business organizations recognized by the 1976 "Eugene Neighborhood Organization Recognition Policy," which states; "The City of Eugene recognizes that public participation through neighborhood organizations can produce benefits for the general health, welfare, and pride of the total community."
In May 1999, the Eugene City Council adopted the following mission statement for Neighborhood Associations:
Our mission is to build community at the neighborhood level and improve the livability of the City's neighborhoods. Neighborhood Associations do this by:
Sponsoring neighborhood improvement projects and social events;
Providing a forum to identify, discuss, and resolve neighborhood issues;
Establishing two-way communication between neighborhoods and the City, and between neighborhoods and other external agencies;
Educating neighbors on issues, public process, City services, and elections, and;
Identifying and advocating the Neighborhood Association's position on issues such as land use, transportation, public safety, and social services.
Neighborhood Association Overview
Active Bethel Citizens
Amazon Neighbors Association
Cal Young Neighborhood Association
Churchill Area Neighbors
Crest Drive Citizens Association
Downtown Neighborhood Association
Fairmount Neighbors
Far West Neighborhood Association
Friendly Area Neighbors
Harlow Neighbors
Industrial Corridor Community Organization
Jefferson Westside Neighbors
Laurel Hill Valley Citizens
River Road Community Organization
Santa Clara Community Organization
South University Neighborhood Organization
Southeast Neighbors
Trainsong Neighbors
West Eugene Neighborhood Association
West University Neighbors
Whiteaker Community Council
note: organizations highlighted in bold are in areas under consideration by the WEC but not invited to participate in the discussions
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