When communications fail

Those who communicate with the general public really should keep a few things in mind.

Presenters must use clear language with words that leave no room for ambiguity. They must lay out the value proposition of their ideas. They must be transparent. They must respect their audience. These are the minimum requirements but, they must be met if the presentation has any hope of success.

When that audience is known to be a bit hostile to the message, these tenants are crucial and the presenter should probably spend more time building the value proposition. Oh, and bend over backwards on that transparency part.

Tuesday’s meeting of the WilCo citizens road bond committee was supposed to be an opportunity for members of the committee to hear about proposed projects for Precinct 4. A brief question and answer period was to follow.

The meeting went off the rails long before the presenters got through all of the proposals.

There was very little in the way building a value proposition (explaining why the roads will be needed) or why the specific corridors were proposed. Until late in the meeting, the presenters failed to outline how competing projects would be chosen or even that what would be presented represented Tuesday was a “wish list” rather than a solid plan.

When a similar meeting was held last week in Cedar Park, only eight people showed up. About 100 people were at Tuesday’s meeting — most of them outwardly hostile to what they knew of the proposals.

They would be. They were mostly farmers who stand to see large chunks of their farmland sucked up by the kinds of roads (described as “transportation corridors” — please see rule number one) the coordinators envisioned. Some of these plans have been kicking around for years and these voters feel betrayed by the lack of available information and allowance for the changes they will wreak.

The development these new roads make possible will also significantly alter — perhaps even destroy — a way of life many of them have enjoyed for generations.

And to top it off, any successful bond election would see these people paying higher county property taxes for the pleasure of dealing with unwanted development.

Little wonder the proposals were often greeted with loud jeers and hoots of derision.

It was a fine example of pure frustration boiling out.

Now, in addition to helping weed through all the proposals, one purpose of a citizens committee is to serve as political cover for the elected officials. To his credit, Russ Boles, Pct. 4’s squeaky-new county commissioner, stood up and tried to re-direct the crowd’s raw anger and frustration.

His efforts weren’t entirely successful but they did deflect the meeting’s trajectory. Instead of descending into a near riot, it was merely hotly contentious.

The team responsible for that meeting were wholly unprepared for what they surely knew would be a hostile audience dubious of the central message.  Just off the top of my head, here’s a few ways they failed.

• The committee sat with their backs to the audience. This showed disrespect.
• Someone on the presentation team should have begun the meeting with stories about the dangers of unbridled development — those stories exist; Boles even told one about an hour into the event. This is part of the value proposition.
• The team needed to outline the limits of county government. And of city government. And that, in Texas, the belief that no one can tell us what we can and cannot do with our private property extends to everyone — even neighbors who are ready to sell their land.
• Someone should have mentioned that a great deal of the property in the area is already on the market; commercial and residential development is coming and designating roadways is one of the few tools available to the county to control that growth.
• Someone on the team should have discussed the bond election process, where the go/no go points are along the way and mention that nothing presented Tuesday was etched in stone — even if some of it is.

All of that — at least — needed to be conveyed before even one project was presented. If nothing else, it would have helped set expectations.

As it was, it took a herculean effort on Boles’ part to salvage anything out of that meeting. But, sadly, the county made very little headway in getting rural voters on board with the potential road projects.

Author: The Ragged Edge

Old school print journalist trying to make it in a digital world. View all posts by The Ragged Edge