Toward that end, the Corps, working with Mendocino and Sonoma county governments and the California State Resources Agency, called a series of workshops to involve community members living in and with interests in the watershed. The June 26 meeting in Santa Rosa drew approximately 300 people. In Ukiah, on August 1, there were over 150 attendees, and the August 22nd meeting in Cloverdale was a full house as well. Attendance at the September 12 meeting, which was the first with the designated interim council members, was over 100 people.
Clearly there is interest within the community to proceed with and participate in this project, despiteÑor maybe because ofÑthe diverse interests, and the broad-based mistrust most people who are participating demonstrate toward government.
Interim council
The plan is to form an interim council to work out the details of the permanent council. Considerations in forming the council include geographical representation, balanced representation of interests, size, decision making process, roles and responsibilities of council members and of the agencies and public accountability.
The Corps defined four interest groups from the meeting's input: agencies (city, county, special districts, state, and federal), environmental groups (general, watershed, fish/wildlife/plants, forestry/timber), economic interest groups (mining, agriculture, timber, recreation/tourism, labor, landowners/residential, and Native American), and unaffiliated members of the general public.
The council will serve in an advisory capacity, making recommendations to government on policy, procedures and projects concerning the Russian River watershed.
Trouble in River City
Agencies reaching out to the community on a matter of public interest with community residents answering the call in significant numbers seems like an ideal scenario. However the dynamics at the meetings don't support this. There is the sense, and not completely without basis, that the Corps and other agencies have an agenda about which they aren't completely forthcoming.
While on one hand the message is that its members will run the council, there are agency timelines and funding considerations that dictate the meeting schedules and agendas. Typically those matters have not been put forth until agency spokespersons are pushed to explain something. This reinforces the distrust stemming from the belief that participants are being "used" to meet some mandate for public input or to counter complaints about the decisions which will be made down the road.
There was strong disapproval at one meeting when it was discovered the Corps had contacted members of one economic interest group whom they felt to be under represented, and invited them onto the interim council which, in the opinion of ongoing process participants, had already been established. This power and control tug-of-war between community members and agency staff is an undeniable dynamic in this formation stage of the council.
Some people who are active in watershed issues have declined to participate in the Russian River Watershed Council because they feel it is a diversion or a co-optation tactic, and their time is better spent in other grassroots activities. Others, who choose to participate, do so because they believe it is important that their perspective be represented among the diverse and sometimes competing interests in the river and watershed.
Challenge
Economic and environmental interests working together on a matter of mutual concern, and agreement among these interests, along with the sincerity of the Corps' and other agencies' request for community direction, is paramount to the success of the council. If this milieu can result in a combined effort to do what is best for the river and its aquatic life, then it will indeed be a worthwhile endeavor.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1998
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited