Transparency ≠ Participation. Town's Plan Still Falls Short.

Town Suddenly Finds A Way To Address Transparency Problem. Now Let’s Talk About the Participation Problem.

Two weeks ago, residents were told that recording Parks & Recreation Commission meetings was not feasible because doing so required additional staffing resources.

This week, Parks & Recreation Commission meetings will be televised and recorded in response to some strong feedback sent to Town Hall.

We’ll let readers draw their own conclusions.

The important thing is that residents spoke up, Town officials/staff heard the criticism, and two meaningful improvements have already occurred:

• Parks & Recreation Commission meetings will now be televised.

• Staff reports are now appearing on meeting agendas, allowing residents to see what is actually being discussed before meetings occur.

Those are positive developments.

They also happen to be the exact transparency improvements residents were told could not realistically be provided just days earlier.

But while this newfound transparency effort is an improvement, the newly released Master Plan timeline continues to reveal a different concern: public participation.

According to the Town’s proposed process, resident involvement will largely consist of providing two- or three-minute public comments during Commission and Council meetings while Town staff and consultants develop the actual plan.

That may technically qualify as public input.

It does not qualify as meaningful public participation.

A Parks, Recreation & Open Space Master Plan is not a routine agenda item. It is a long-range planning effort that could influence millions of dollars in future spending, future tax proposals, park priorities, recreation facilities, open space use, neighborhood impacts and community amenities for years to come.

Residents are not asking to rubber-stamp a finished product after it has already been developed.

Residents are asking to help shape it.

There is a significant difference.

Residents want opportunities to create and evaluate competing concepts before preferred options emerge and are presented to decision makers. That is meaningful participation. Standing at a podium for two or three minutes after staff and consultants have already developed proposals is something else entirely.

In fact, many of the concepts that recently generated robust and sometimes heated community discussion appeared with little advance public visibility:

• Potential sports fields and/or a community facility replacing the JM pear orchard, or by bulldozing or significantly modifying the Hacienda.

• Possible changes to Rancho Laguna’s longstanding unofficial dog park use.

• Pickleball concepts near one of Moraga’s quieter park settings adjacent to nearby homes.

Whether residents support or oppose any of those ideas is not the point. The point is that people should not be learning about potentially transformative concepts through last-minute outreach events, neighborhood conversations and community rumor chains.

If the Town truly wants community buy-in and legitimately desires bonafide community participation, it should invite residents into the process before concepts solidify. Merely providing time-limited opportunities to react afterward is woefully insufficient.

Transparency and participation are not the same thing.

One allows residents to watch.

The other allows residents to influence.

Tomorrow’s Parks & Recreation Commission meeting and Wednesday’s Town Council meeting provide an opportunity for residents to make that distinction clear.

If you believe two- or three-minute public comments are not an adequate substitute for genuine community participation in a once-in-a-generation planning effort, now would be an excellent time to let the Town know:

Click here to email the Town Council Click here to email the Parks & Rec Commission (be sure to ask that your message be distributed to all Commissioners)