California Air Resources Board

Link to Jamboard:Community Dialogue - Virtual 4 - Google Jamboard  

Background: There were approximately 30 participants. Two breakout groups were created for smaller group discussions. 

Summary: On January 25^th, 2024, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) hosted an online virtual meeting via Zoom to seek recommendations from members of the public on ways that CARB can better engage with communities when developing programs, projects, policies, and regulations. The event started off with a brief presentation that discussed who CARB and the staff working on this effort are, the purpose of the draft Community Engagement Model (Model) being developed, and what the draft Model currently includes. After the presentation, participants transitioned into two smaller breakout groups to engage in discussions regarding key questions relating to outreach, engagement, and follow-through. At the end of the meeting, each breakout group gave a report out of key ideas that were discussed. Key ideas and themes included: delivering information that is specific and relevant to the community you are engaging with, utilizing customer-based engagement tactics, prioritizing equity over equality, and ensuring that populations that need to be involved or affected by the CARB action are present. 

Notes from the Jamboard with Supplemental Notes 

Outreach 

1. How can CARB best inform you that something is going on?  

a. For example, regulatory updates, grants, enforcement issues  

b. Email, social media, etc. 

• General outreach 
  • Email 
  • Social media - catch attention right away since there is so much information nowadays. Cast a wide net, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, short videos 
  • Meet people where they congregate (schools). Helps reach folks that wouldn't ordinarily be reached. 
  • Multiple methods 
    • Younger folks are not using the same kind of social media the community is using. Older folks do not use social media. Events where people come out and view 
  • Need to understand and tailor to audience 
    • Know what people are interested. Need customer management type of system. 
    • Relate rules to who your consumer is. understand that we need to know who the customer is so that they can be targeted for outreach. "CRM" customer relationship management 
    • CRM - Customer Relation Management system - know their interest and get their feedback on what you do. 
    • Echo customer service aspect. Reach out to stakeholders  
    • Much like the last speaker said… I think if you tailor the emails based on an individual's interests and use some way to indicate that, it could work. For example, if I’m interested in the topic, it could be color coded or something similar to set it apart from other emails. Sometimes there are just too many emails 
• Accessibility 
  • We need to use Plain Language 
• Collaborations or partnerships 
  • Emphasize importance of local entity  
  • Collaborating with local air districts in using their established communications. 
  • Third parties are an alternative to communicating with stakeholders. Provide mindset to go above and beyond 
  • Contract with Culturally Competent Service Providers to monitor and distribute. (Like US EPA Brownfields & Center for Creative Land Recycling) Long term 3rd party credibility 
  • Identify underserved communities by public health outcomes and ADA to create an engagement task force comprised of those communities (ASL, ESL, Low Infant Birth Weight, ASTHMA) 
• Understand issues of mistrust 
  • Remember you serve the public and EJ isn’t the same as special interests 
    • Folks are impacted when government sides with business. Outreach needs to include elected officials. They need to understand 
    • Legislative fix might be needed? State usually calls that a conflict.... but EJ communities aren't an interest...they're CA communities that have been denied equal protection. 
    • Echo comments about trust. would rather go over a non-regulatory body that helps with cleaner processes. Navigate around regulatory process. Suggest listing business groups as resources.  
• Action 
  • Monitor a subset of Local Land Use Authorities, particularly those with bad history and negative public health outcomes and provide enriched community notification services  
• Broader requests for CARB 
  • Comments and reviews of CEQA are invaluable. Citizens need to be able to make the connection to the material. Make findings significant to community members 
  • There needs to be regular and ongoing training about the regulation development and enforcement - topic studies that can be informed by regular feedback. 
  • Some generalists would be helpful when there are so many specialists at CARB. 
  • Low carbon fuels workshops and biomass credits 

2. How should we communicate information so it is relatable and understandable?  

a. Enough background, clear language, more visual components like  

charts, maps, infographics, etc. 

• Accessibility 
  • Audience 
    • Identify your specific community only way to communicate properly with that community on the issues that they face 
    • Provide information within a specific region/area. Not regional data 
      • From the neighborhood for the neighborhood 
      • Regional information is less useful, need local level information  
      • Tailor the statistics to that entire group rather than entire state 
  • Accessible language and terms 
    • Terminology that is understandable  
    • Community organizers are having to translate everything for the state. State needs to be better at doing that 
    • Translating your reports, agendas, presentations - know your audience 
  • Visuals or other methods 
    • Telling a story with visual ideas, helps understand what is being said. 60% of population are visual learners. 
    • Storytelling 
    • Disconnect with pie charts. Show visuals of neighborhood itself instead 
    • Showing a visual is very helpful - example dirty air filter. Talking about it is not as impactful Visualize who is in the background, builds trust, shows you are important part of the work 
    • Not just statistical data 
      • If about feeding people, show people being fed, visualizing solutions 

3. What types of meetings are most useful? 

a. Webinar, phone call, in-person meetings, virtual meetings? 

• Partnership 
  • Work through the schools, parents trust The Principal 
• Context 
  • Depends on the particular area you are going to work in 
• In person 
  • Better to have events in person or hybrid option 
• Hybrid x 2 
  • Hybrid would be a great option 
  • I think hybrid meetings are the most accessible to most people. The issue is having meetings at more variable times. Weekends, later in the evenings, early morning 
• Provide childcare for in person meetings 
• Meetings that include only community members or those that are affected. Best efforts should be made to not have special interests or those that are more than likely causing the harm or concern. 
• Community will engage if they feel it's meaningful engagement and discussion 

Engagement 

1.  Please talk about a government engagement process that went well.  

a. What did you like about that process?   

• Action/Impact 
  • Omnibus with AB 617, now have electric buses, changed from above ground fuel to below ground. Air got better because air quality management district (AQMD) listened to the community and implemented 
  • Statewide action around enforcement budget etc. 
  • If unable to find local method, go statewide because it affects other communities in the state 
• Leadership 
  • AB 617 - local entity did not want to collaborate. Partnership with state showed community's power in their voice 
• Local relationships/context 
  • If you are working with community, come and see, meet us. Walk our walk 
• Power sharing 
  • In Bay Area, community can pick agenda topics. They also involve community in the development of the presentation. This gives the community experience 
  • Get engagement on agenda by working with community groups to develop a presentation. They have the community connections needed to elevate community stories 
  • Co-create strategies. You work for us 
  • Communities are experts in the solution and desired outcome 
  • Bring people to the table that we can collaborate with. Community involvement takes us where we need to be 
  • Reason why programs don't work for community is because it works for the organization/government, not for community 
  • Community doesn't get paid 

2. Please talk about a government engagement process that did not go well.  

a. What could have been done better? 

• Delta Stewardship Council EJ Issue Paper paid advisory group. 
• DSC started asking tough questions early and built a research basis for policy change, BEFORE tangling over a new policy. 
• Comments 
  • Public Comments are the minimum.  Equal comment time presumes an equal society.  
  • This doesn’t work: Two minutes to speak in Stockton for all city meetings then if there are too many people, one minute 
  • Comment duration can be extended when there aren't a ton of commenters, or if a commenter represents a specific needed input population.....Everyone in the government seems to know they can abridge commenting time when there's prolific comments, they should learn to curate comments from the folks who have been missing from this process for so long. An Administrator or Facilitator who sees that opportunity and gives more time will be taken much more seriously. 
  • Had to have a facilitator annotate every comment from communities and clarify if any follow up was needed. 

3. How should CARB balance engagement versus communities being asked to do too much? 

• No comments on Jamboard. 

Follow Through 

1. When you provide feedback, what is the best way we can show that your feedback was heard and considered? 

• Transparency 
  • Post responses online in single locations. 
    • Consolidate all in a single portal. 
    • Not having a portal where it's closed, but instead give people the opportunity to comment on it