Public Engagement
LJS works with community and public processes to ensure people potentially affected by decisions are actively, authentically and meaningfully engaged as peers with decision-makers in problem-solving and determining outcomes. LJS has demonstrated successes in working to involve under-represented communities and stakeholders.
For public engagement, LJS partners with JLA Public Involvement (JLA ), a recognized leader in community engagement in the Pacific Northwest, to create highly inclusive processes for vigorous and thoughtful deliberation and dialogue on issues that impact significant steps of policy development and planning. JLA has been at the heart of many of this region’s most significant community conversations around transportation planning, growth management, infrastructure development and natural resource protection.
In our practice of public engagement, LJS seeks to uphold the “Core Values for Public Participation” as developed over a 2-year, international and inclusive process by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2).
- The public should have a say in decisions about actions that could affect their lives.
- Public participation includes the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision.
- Public participation promotes sustainable decisions by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision-makers.
- Public participation seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected by or interested in a decision.
- Public participation seeks input from participants in designing how they participate.
- Public participation provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way.
- Public participation communicates to participants how their input affected the decision.
