The Fraud called “Public Involvement”

Help Clean The
River and Bay!

July 22, 2009 - by Rebecca L. Katers

During the 2009 creation of new “Delisting Criteria” for the Lower Fox River and Green Bay Area of Concern, public involvement has been handled horribly. Thousands of our tax dollars have been misused by the EPA and DNR, converting a “public input process” into a dishonest public relations campaign designed to give the agencies what they want and protect them from critics.

The following methods were used to rig the process:

1. Our “Area of Concern” was left to last, without our knowledge or consent. The agencies finished criteria at the other 42 Areas of Concern around the Great Lakes before our process started. This created pressure to copy decisions made at other communities without our input, whether or not they were appropriate or we agreed.

2. Our timeline was too short. Because the agencies left our RAP to last, they said we had only a few months to write our own criteria. During meetings, they frequently cut off discussion and expressed impatience with committee members who raised questions beyond what the agencies wanted to hear, always using the excuse that we were running out of time and needed to “move along.”

3. Time allotted was poorly used. Though the agencies told us time was short, they were extremely disorganized when it came to completing the work. Some examples:

a. They created 3 subcommittees to handle different topics, then waited 1.5 months to call a meeting of two of the subcommittees, and a full 2.5 months to call a meeting of the subcommittee handling the most contentious topics.

b. The few and infrequent meetings were scheduled for only 3 hours each, putting serious limits on how much could be accomplished. Complicated discussions should not be rushed like this.

c. Meeting notices were not coordinated or sent with enough advance notice. Several notices were not sent to everyone (including me), and some notices were buried in lengthy e-mails. Because of this, I missed several important subcommittee meetings. (Was this deliberate?)

d. Significant chunks of meeting time were spent on issues other than delisting. For example, a full hour of one important 3 hour meeting was derailed into a discussion of grant proposals to the EPA, which meant the rest of the meeting was rushed even more.

4. Committee membership not balanced or representative. The committees were dominated by a small clique of government agency staff and university professors who have worked together in an echo chamber for decades, constantly reinforcing each other and ridiculing comments by outsiders. They were absolutely not representative of the affected community. Several agency staff had already participated in an earlier “technical committee” to draft the proposed criteria, so they came into this process with their official agency positions already set. These staff then ganged up on committee members who disagreed with their draft. It was suggested early on that a wider variety of (non-agency) community representatives be included on the committee, but after the usual lip service, little was done to recruit, involve or retain broader representation.

5. Working public excluded. Meetings were held during weekdays, when most (non-agency) working people were unable to attend. Though it was mentioned that at least some meetings should be held during evenings or weekends, the idea was ignored. The meetings were scheduled for the convenience of paid bureaucrats, as usual, and to ensure that the final result had a strong bureaucratic bias. Roughly 90% of committee attendees were agency staff or recently retired agency staff.

6. Agency comfort and achievement became the goal --- not restoration. – Because the process was dominated by agency bureaucrats, they did not express normal community desires for a healthy and fully safe waterway. Instead, some were interested only in achieving pollution levels comparable with other polluted Great Lakes communities. Or they were interested in “reasonable” implementation goals that they could imagine their agencies achieving in the short term with existing laws and financial resources. For example, several agency representatives objected to the 95% safe swimming criteria for all river and bay waters in our Area of Concern (AOC), on the grounds that their current funding allowed them to frequently sample water quality only at one beach, at Communiversity Park. They couldn’t imagine getting more monitoring funds, so they weakened the safe swimming goal instead. Some appeared to be focused only on political expediency and rapid delisting, so they could declare “mission accomplished” as soon as possible, whether this “achievement” actually healed our AOC or not. They kept saying (inaccurately) that “the Fox River and Bay have always been polluted” or “this won’t change in our lifetimes anyway,” implying that we should keep our expectations low, and aim low as well.

7. Instructions and directions kept changing. Some examples:

a. The first general committee meeting on March 16th (the best attended), was extremely disorganized, with many participants getting sidelined into discussing the potential for a rejuvenated RAP Implementation Committee of some sort. By the end of the meeting, many participants seemed to believe we were working on implementation, rather than writing delisting criteria, so their minds weren’t focused on our task. Our purpose was jumbled, so the conversation was jumbled. I kept trying to raise concerns about the criteria, and others kept blocking me, saying that I should focus on implementation instead. Little was accomplished.

b. After much discussion, at this same meeting, the committee decided to create several subcommittees, and there was strong support for a subcommittee to address human health aspects of the criteria. Agency representatives, particularly Vicki Harris (Sea Grant), manipulated the group to lump human health into the subcommittee controlled by the old Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC), rather than having a valuable and fresh new subcommittee on human health. But the STAC failed to meet for the next 2.5 months (deliberately?), and by the time a meeting was called on June 2nd, the agencies declared we didn’t have time and they saw no need for a human health discussion. It didn’t fit their mindset of how the criteria should be addressed. The fish consumption criteria were rushed through over my objections and discussion was cut off after less than 30 minutes, with Vicki Harris’ enthusiastic support. Other topics were equally abbreviated.

c. Time was spent discussing “suspected impairments” on the list of beneficial uses, then at one of the last meetings we were told that we didn’t need to establish delisting criteria for those. For example, an agency representative said that fish tumors were “common” in many water bodies and difficult to sort out. They declared that the Fox River’s fish tumors were unimportant, even though the tumors were now proven (not just suspected.) Those impairments were essentially dropped and unaddressed in the final criteria.

d. Early on, we were told that we needed to write detailed criteria for every aspect of each impairment, but in the last meetings, we were told that EPA had decided that it was OK to be vague and general (… apparently, so long as the goals were weakened.)

8. Potential funding was used to pressure or bribe committee members. At a critically important meeting later in the process, the EPA started with a long introduction emphasizing that we really needed to rush and complete our criteria to EPA’s satisfaction and on time, or risk losing millions of dollars in EPA grant money. The message was crystal clear: “Do what I want, or I won’t help you get money for your projects.” Or, put another way, funds for our area would be held hostage or blocked completely unless EPA was happy. This put a chill on discussions, because “uncooperative” committee members could be seen as endangering important local projects (…in fact, Bill Hafs [Brown Co. Land and Water Conservation Dept.] turned to me and said as much…). It would be especially threatening to individuals who might be seen as personally unworthy of EPA grants. Vicki Harris and others then asked many follow-up questions about grant availability, timing, how to apply for grants, who to consult, etc. Everyone was focused on money for the entire first hour of discussion. They no longer seemed interested in or concerned about the criteria. It was pure manipulation and intimidation by the EPA. I’m outraged that the EPA is using my tax dollars to extort local communities in this way, to weaken community environmental health goals. This bribery should be illegal.

9. Legitimate concerns repeatedly dismissed --- Despite EPA and DNR claims that they welcomed public input, most of my concerns were ignored, dismissed, ridiculed or even attacked. They cut off discussion and changed the topic many times. Even if I succeeded in getting concerns on the record, they were removed or not incorporated in the final proposal. For example, the beach criteria were weakened. I had asked (and I thought others agreed) that all river and bay waters in the AOC should at least meet the weak 95% criteria for safe swimming, but this was reverted back to the original language, so the 95% applied only to officially designated swimming beaches (ie: only Communiversity Park) – an outrageously lame standard. I also felt that thermal pollution should be included under the aesthetic criteria, but several agency representatives refused to hear it and stopped the discussion. I raised at least a dozen other significant objections or proposals that were also slapped down or ignored. Public input processes conducted by the DNR and EPA are a fraud. They have no intention of truly listening or incorporating legitimate citizen concerns.

10. Badgered and blocked by agency staff --- At the last meeting, Gary Kincaid (DNR) repeatedly sneered at me when I raised concerns about vague wording and the potential for weak enforcement by the DNR or EPA if clearer wording wasn’t used. He kept saying, “Do you REALLY think the DNR would interpret the words that way? Do you REALLY think the specific words will make any difference? Do you REALLY think DNR would do that?” --- as if I was crazy to distrust the agency, though the DNR has been riddled with examples of political manipulations over the years. He was obnoxious and blocked all my attempts to get clearer words used. He provided a perfect example of why I don’t trust the agencies to use their so-called “expert judgment” to enforce vaguely worded laws. In my experience, the DNR always does the least possible under the law. Gary Kincaid’s chronically lazy and hostile attitude is typical.

11. Deliberately bad timing --- The final deciding meetings were scheduled for summer, during the height of the vacation period, when many committee members and the public would be gone. Over and over again, we have objected to such bad timing, but it seems agencies consciously choose to limit public input with this trick.

12. No Town Hall public meeting opportunity --- I repeatedly asked that this process end with a Town Hall style meeting or “public informational hearing,” where citizens could testify before a general audience and a public debate could be aired. (I did not ask for a formal recorded public hearing with a hearing examiner and legal formalities – just an audience-style open meeting where citizens could be heard by everyone in the room.)

But instead, the agencies announced a “cafeteria-style” meeting, where agencies would set up information tables and the public would be invited to wander around the room haphazardly and talk to individual agency staff about their concerns. Citizens could come and go at any time in a 2 hour period. The agencies claimed that the public “liked” this form of input. (What is their proof?) But cafeteria-style public meetings are NOT a substitute for true public involvement, for the following reasons:

a. Information control and one-sided presentations – At a cafeteria-style meeting, the DNR and EPA have sole control of the message. Citizens at the event only hear the information the agencies want them to hear. No one else is allowed to present their concerns to the audience, because the audience has been deliberately dispersed and separated, kept ignorant of any differing opinions. The agencies know that informed citizens are likely to raise serious objections to their proposals, but a cafeteria-style hearing allows them to divide and conquer all opponents. This is blatant crowd control and brainwashing. It should not be allowed in a democracy. Information tables are fine as a supplement to public oral testimony, but a cafeteria-style event is a travesty when substituted for a Town Hall style hearing.

b. Agency accountability is eliminated – Some agency staff find cafeteria-style events more comfortable because they can ignore or ridicule individual comments with impunity. Staff do not have to defend their comments in front of a crowd, or be exposed to growing public awareness and possible disapproval from a large group of people. For example: A public audience would never tolerate Gary Kincaid (DNR) repeatedly dismissing my concerns by saying “You’ll never be satisfied, Becky.” He’s rude and arrogant, but he’s safe saying such things at an agency controlled event because the public is unaware of his actions and the news media aren’t present.

Another example: I attended a cafeteria-style event in Shawano a few years ago, where a fisheries biologist told me all the mercury contamination of fish in Northern Wisconsin came from natural sources. Though I tried to argue with him, he insisted pollution had nothing to do with advisories. If he had tried that in front of a crowd, he would have been corrected instantly, but I was cut off from everyone else in the room. Nobody knew what he was saying. He was completely safe, and I was completely wasting my time.

c. Individual staff given too much control – What assurance will citizens have that their comments will be shared with anyone else at the agency? In fact, how can agency heads be certain they have a complete record of public concerns when they are at the mercy of individual staff listening to comments one-on-one? For example, I would never trust Gary Kincaid (DNR) to pass along my concerns (or anyone else’s) after a cafeteria-style event. There would be no recordings, no minutes, no notes and no witnesses – so when he disagreed, he’d be free to just keep comments to himself. It would be like talking to a trash can.

d. Citizens are disempowered and neutralized - An individual making comments to just one agency person has no recourse, no support, and no hope of having any influence at the agencies. Worse yet, multiple agency staff people often gang up on one citizen at these events, intimidating citizens into silence. After a few experiences like this, an individual learns to not attend such fake public involvement meetings. It’s not worth the aggravation and frustration. Bureaucrats will say the public is “apathetic,” but they’re not being honest. The public has been made helpless, cynical and angry about the government being beyond public control. Most people feel it’s useless to resist. Cafeteria-style events are a perfect embodiment of this disempowerment and government corruption. The public knows the decisions have already been made. Agencies only give the appearance of public involvement, in a format designed just to reinforce agency decisions.

e. The public has no record of public comments. At a cafeteria-style meeting, it’s impossible to record oral public comments with any completeness, because so many conversations are held concurrently. So, there is no public record of dissenting opinions. The public is kept in the dark. We’re expected to simply trust agencies to tell us what was said to them privately, at a time when public trust in government is non-existent. This violates any sense of fair play or transparency in government decision-making. At a Town Hall style meeting, citizens can use video cameras or tape recorders if they want a record, which increases public trust in the outcome.

f. No fact checking of citizens either. At a cafeteria-style meeting, citizens can also say anything they want without proof, which could lead to wasted time or bad decisions at the agencies. At a Town Hall meeting, participants fact-check each other as well as agencies, so inaccuracies are less likely to gain traction.

g. Knowledge can’t evolve efficiently. A Town Hall meeting is more productive. Everyone becomes better informed, as disputes and debates from a variety of viewpoints are aired publicly. We’re allowed to form our own opinions. I’ve learned something new and valuable from citizens at every hearing I’ve attended. People who haven’t studied an issue in detail can hear a public debate and learn more before they testify themselves. This makes their comments better informed.

In contrast, at cafeteria-style meetings, it’s unavoidable that we become indoctrinated and brainwashed with just the government’s approved message, leaving us with only part of the story and stifling any growth in the discussion. Citizens are often overwhelmed by information and agencies compound this problem by intimidating citizens with technical jargon, causing them to just give up. Those same citizens, hearing a detailed and focused public debate, would likely give more productive feedback.

At a Town Hall meeting, key issues are pulled out of the agencies’ voluminous information, and distilled into laymen’s terms, allowing citizens to efficiently consider the most critical or debated ideas without being overwhelmed. This ensures better community understanding, ownership and control over important decisions.

h. The general public is manipulated by a government-controlled news media. – When only a cafeteria-style meeting is held, the larger public is kept ignorant of any disputes, because the attending news media can’t hear the crowd’s reaction to agency proposals. Reporters are forced to wander the room seeking individual comments from people who are themselves isolated from each other and limited in their awareness of points of contention. Issue debates will be unreported in the media, which means the general public will see a false news story that favors only the agency proposals. This is blatant manipulation of the media and public opinion.

i. Elected officials are also manipulated. – Our elected representatives need to keep an eye on our government agencies, challenge bad decisions, and require agency responsiveness to public concerns. They frequently attend public hearings and town hall meetings to gauge public reaction to agency proposals. They need to hear all sides of the debate before they take a stand. This openness is vital for government accountability to voters, but a cafeteria style meeting blocks this. Politicians are as isolated as citizens at such meetings, allowing the agencies to control what the politicians hear. Worse yet, politicians will be further manipulated and pressured into supporting agency decisions because media coverage is also manipulated to favor the agencies. When public involvement is rigged in this way, the agencies control our politicians. This should not be tolerated.

j. Whose country is this? - Val Klump (UW-Milw) claimed the delisting criteria should not be subject to a “popularity contest” at a public hearing, or be based on what the public wants. Committee members all seemed to agree with him, despite the glaring fact that this is an elitist attitude and shows deep disrespect for the people who go out of their way to attend Town Hall meetings.

The prevailing agency and university attitude seems to be “We’re the experts and our opinions are always superior to opinions from the ignorant public,” despite the fact that many of these delisting criteria are value judgments and not difficult to understand.

Klump also exposed the fiction that the delisting criteria will be based on “community acceptance.” (Erin Hansen [DNR] already leaked the truth when she explained that if we couldn’t reach a community consensus on the delisting criteria – which is impossible - the agencies would do what they wanted anyway.)

Klump also misrepresented the results of a Town Hall meeting. There would be no "contest" or "vote." Instead, there would be extended debate, possibly heated, on the merits of various delisting criteria. The agencies, politicians, news media and public would have a sense of how the community responded. Agencies would still make final decisions, but be publicly accountable for responding appropriately to public objections. The media would more likely follow up and tell the public how issues were resolved. Politicians would be better informed and more accountable. This is how democracies are supposed to work. We citizens are supposed to control our government. The government must not be allowed to control us.

k. Not like the old days – In the 1980s, DNR hearings would start at 6:30 or 7:00 pm. and often continue past midnight, with no set ending time, so everyone could have their say. These were true public input events and learning opportunities that were often well-attended.. Fox River and Green Bay hearings often attracted more than 100-150 people. Information tables were on the side. Media coverage was better. Politicians were more responsive. Citizens had a sense that they might have made a difference by participating. We had a tremendous sense of community at these events.

Now, agencies hold cafeteria-style events for 2 bleak hours of aimless, isolated wandering, and citizens leave knowing they had no impact at all. Times are strictly limited, with the excuse that “the facility is closing, so we all have to leave.” (Even at public hearings, testimony times have been reduced from the standard 5 to 10 minutes to a ridiculously brief 3 minutes, to meet an unnecessary and artificial 2 hour total limit.)

It's not surprising that only 12 people showed up at the July 23, 2009 cafeteria-style meeting on the "Delisting Criteria."

13. Extremely Poor Public Notice – The DNR did almost nothing to publicize the public meeting or comment period. We saw only a tiny article under the headline : “News in Northeast Wisconsin, Green Bay” which said:

“The state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental protection Agency will host an informational session Thursday to discuss the strategy for restoring the environmental health of lower Green Bay and the Fox River. The public input session will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary Nature Center auditorium. The International Joint Commission identified the bay and river as one of 43 Areas of Concern in the Great Lakes. Fish and wildlife habitat, contaminated sediment, and water quality are among the issues being studied for restoration. The goal of the restoration plan is to eventually have the bay and river areas removed from list, according to Erin Hanson, DNR water resources management specialist.”

<>This is not even close to describing the “Delisting Criteria” or “Beneficial Use Impairments.” The public is being badly misled about the topic of the meeting. There's no hint of controversy. There’s no online link or phone number for getting additional information. There’s also no mention of a written comment deadline or address for mailing comments.

The DNR also had only a brief notice on their website:

July 23 – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be hosting a public input session to discuss restoration goals (delisting targets) for the Lower Green Bay and Fox River Area of Concern from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary Nature Center Auditorium, 1660 E. Shore Dr., Green Bay. There will be an opportunity to learn more about and comment on the draft delisting targets for problems related to fish and wildlife (habitat, populations, health, and consumption advisories), plankton (free floating plants and animals) and benthic (bottom living plants and animals) populations, nutrient pollution and undesirable algae, beach closings, aesthetics, and restrictions on drinking water and dredging . For more information contact Erin Hanson, DNR at 920-662-5419 or ErinE.Hanson@wisconsin.gov; or John Perrecone, EPA at 312-353-1149 or Perrecone.John@epamail.epa.gov.

<>Again, the DNR provided no online links to background information on this extremely important and complex program. There’s also no mention of a written comment deadline or an address for mailing comments. There’s almost no effort to encourage public feedback. The agencies expect citizens to walk in off the street and express an opinion at their cozy little event, after very little time to absorb HUGE amounts of information.

Conclusion

With these rigged committee processes and cafeteria-style events, the EPA and DNR have taken the easy way out, giving the impression of public input while emphatically avoiding it. This is how bad agency decisions get past the public and elected officials are caught off-guard.

Democracy isn’t easy. It requires agencies to listen to people they disagree with and sometimes to incorporate citizen concerns. It requires full publicity and full dissemination of details BEFORE public meetings. It requires Town Hall meetings where large groups openly debate the issues. It’s a messy process, and uncomfortable, but it’s the only respectable way to make big decisions in our society.

back to top

	CONTENT BY: Rebecca Leighton Katers WEB DESIGN BY: DataScouts WEB HOSTING BY: Doteasy