Potholes, Parks, and Politics: A guide to getting things done locally (without having to run for office yourself)

By Lisa R Shaffer and Teresa Arballo Barth

Every citizen deserves to be heard. This book will show how to use your voice productively.

It gives easy-to-understand guidance for anyone who wants to see change happen in their community. Based on real-life experience as activists and elected officials, the authors explain the most effective strategies for making progress on local issue

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Shaffer
• Release date: May 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735855714

Lisa R Shaffer

Dr. Lisa Shaffer has had a 47-year career thinking and acting globally and locally. She started her career at NASA and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) focused on international environmental programs, and five years in marketing and strategic planning at an aerospace company. In 1998, Shaffer joined Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as Director of International Relations and Policy Programs, before becoming the executive director of the UC San Diego Sustainability Solutions Institute. She taught ethics, environmental strategy, and corporate social responsibility at UCSD. Lisa was elected to the Encinitas City Council on an ethics platform and served from 2012-2016. In 2020, Dr. Shaffer published a book, Potholes, Parks, and Politics: a guide to getting things done locally (without having to run for office yourself). Lisa has held positions on many non-profit boards and volunteers with a number of local organizations. She earned her B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan, her Ph.D. in public policy from the George Washington University, and an MBA from UCSD. Currently, having failed at retirement, she teaches "Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility" on a part-time basis at UCSD and serves as the coordinator of the Encinitas Environmental Education Collaborative, a coalition of seven local non-profit/governmental organizations. Lisa and her husband, Steve Bartram, have four adult daughters, two grand horses, four grand dogs, and at least one grand cat, but alas, no grandchildren.

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Potholes, Parks, and Politics

A Guide to Getting Things Done Locally

(Without Having to Run for Office Yourself)

by

Lisa R. Shaffer, Ph.D.

With help from Teresa Arballo Barth

Illustrations by Sharon Belknap

Potholes, Parks, and Politics

A Guide to Getting Things Done Locally

(Without Having to Run for Office Yourself)

by

Lisa R. Shaffer, Ph.D.

With help from Teresa Arballo Barth

Illustrations by Sharon Belknap

Copyright © 2020 by Lisa R. Shaffer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned,

or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

Fourth Edition: April 2021

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-7358557-1-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020923498

Table of Contents

Praise for Potholes, Parks, and Politics

This book is a great read and an important tool for citizens wanting to know how to deal with their local government to achieve real change.

- Carl Luna, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Civil Civic Engagement, University of San Diego

"Shaffer and Barth have done a fantastic job. They have anchored their guidebook in the importance of three things: civility, clarity, and communication. They explain why and how to properly define the problem … They also stress the importance of identifying who actually has the authority to solve a particular problem … They lay out the process for contacting those authorities, making one’s case, and achieving a result, and they do it with easy to understand examples and definitions. …and do it all in less than 100 pages in an incredibly readable book. … I enthusiastically endorse it."

- Sheila Kennedy, Emerita Professor of Law and Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

Shaffer’s book, Potholes, Parks, and Politics: A guide to getting things done locally (without having to run for office yourself), hands over the local government playbook to all citizens, of all political beliefs, in towns anywhere across America.

- Caitlin Steinberg, Coast News

This should be at the reference desk of every library and available in every City Hall. It’s about time! Having worked in local government for decades, I have seen many frustrated people who cannot figure out how to get something fixed in their community. Ms. Shaffer lays out straightforward information, concise, and sprinkled with humor, that is what everyone needs to know to clarify their concern, figure out who has responsibility to fix it, and get the job done.

- Linda Pratt, retired San Diego public servant

PREFACE

You want something fixed in your town. Maybe it’s slowing down traffic in your neighborhood to protect kids at play. Maybe it’s fixing the cracked, potholed street in front of your mother’s house. The noise after midnight from that new bar on the next block is keeping you up at night. The nearest park to your daughter’s house is miles out of her way so your grandchild doesn’t get to use the swings as often as she should. Whatever it may be--faster police and ambulance response times, less development in the open lands of town, or something else—you are left with a question? What should you do?

Until these problems arose, you probably never thought about local government. You voted (maybe) for the city council candidates that your politically active neighbor recommended without spending a lot of time studying the candidates or the issues. But now you want something done. So, what to do?

This guidebook is an attempt by two former elected officials in a mid-sized city in Southern California to share what they learned from their experiences, adding background information and input from experts and others who have served at the local level, in a handbook we hope will be helpful to the everyday lives of people. This is not a guide to big city politics. It is not a critique of American democracy. It’s a simple effort to answer the question How do I get my local government to get something done in my community?

The first part of the book uses three examples of everyday people who have a problem they think their city needs to address. The second section, Digging Deeper, goes into more detail about our governmental system, with particular attention to local government. It also addresses when and how to use the legal system. The last part is called the Toolbox and provides more in-depth information and sample documents for each step in the process of local civic problem-solving. The Appendix offers links to more resources for those interested in local government.

The authors bring different backgrounds and perspectives to this task, but they share the experience of winning election to the City Council of Encinitas, California, a city of about sixty thousand residents in the north coastal area of San Diego County. They reflected on who they listened to, who was effective in bringing new ideas and constructive proposals, and which residents went away frustrated and feeling like nobody cared. What made the difference?

Civility, clarity, and communication–those are the keys to success. People who had taken the time to clearly define the core issue, the real problem, that needed attention, did their homework, and were open to exploring a range of responses, were much more likely to be satisfied. Those who approached public officials in a spirit of collaboration and not confrontation were more likely to feel heard.

There is a lot of ignorance and misinformation in our society about local government, even though there is much truth in the adage that all politics is local. While broad policy is determined at the state and federal level, those policies become manifest in our towns and cities. Committing to reduce greenhouse gases is one thing. Whether a community chooses to meet that goal through encouraging more walking and bicycle travel; by mandating solar panels and graywater systems in new construction; by planting more trees; or any number of other strategies depends on local government actions or inactions.

This guidebook is meant to help people effectively advocate for whatever policies and programs they desire. It also provides some background and perspective to help people understand what is feasible, what is appropriate, and what to expect when they undertake such efforts.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

If you’re lucky, most of the time, life is good. The streets are paved, clean water comes out of the tap, and traffic lights work. While we often think neighbors are too noisy, there’s too much traffic, and taxes are too high, that’s also what we think of as normal life.

Then something happens. Your trash doesn’t get collected for two weeks straight; there’s a big pothole that hasn’t been filled; a serious accident highlights a dangerous intersection; or you hear that a multistory apartment building is going up in your single-family-home neighborhood. Suddenly you start paying attention and asking questions. Sometimes the situation moves you to get involved, to want to do something. This chapter provides a framework for determining what’s really going on and what, realistically, you can do about it.

All politics may be local, but local government is not all-powerful. Quality of life consists of both the mundane aspects of living that are impacted, if not controlled at the local level--i.e., working, going to school, and enjoying recreation and culture. Overarching these are the