The Community Development Department apparently is allergic to providing Executive Summaries to our City Council

 

. . . and allergic also to finalizing and completing reports.

Based on what we’ve seen, our Community Development Department has an aversion to providing Executive Summaries and actually presenting fact-based conclusions for Arcata’s decision-makers.

Both the “Strategic Infill Redevelopment Program:  Community Engagement Report (Draft)” — submitted to the public on June 17, 2022 — and the “City of Arcata Sea Level Rise Risk Assessment” report from April, 2018, are missing entirely their Executive Summaries — even though those summaries are promoted as being part of the documents.

In both cases, these important reports have a placeholder for an Executive Summary — but an executive summary was never done. Arcata’s Community Development Department staff are responsible for these documents, and Arcata’s City Council apparently never complained.

What is an Executive Summary?

An executive summary provides an overview of the main points of a larger report. It is often written to share with individuals who may not have time to review the entire report.

A reader should be able to make a decision based only on reading the executive summary.

What happened — and didn’t happen — with the June, 2022, Engagement Report

Unfortunately, this engagement report is missing any kind of compilation from the public input of over 170 participants at the January Open House —

 

and the Executive Summary that is listed in the Table of Contents is completely absent.

In January 21 and 22, 2022 — that is at the time of this article over 14 months ago — for two days the City hosted an Open House at the Arcata Community Center.  The stated purpose was to allow the public to learn about the Draft Gateway Area Plan (it had just been released seven weeks earlier) and to give the community an opportunity to weigh in on some of the issues in the plan. 

The “Public Engagement Report” showing, in theory, the public engagement in the Gateway Plan process to that point, was released after much delay on June 17, 2022, five months after the Open House.

Unfortunately, this engagement report is missing any kind of compilation from the public input of over 170 participants at the January Open House, and the Executive Summary that is listed in the Table of Contents is completely absent.

The Engagement Report is shown on the City’s website with this written:

The current phase of General Plan updates will also include an engagement report. This draft Community Engagement Report includes a review of the engagement and decision-making process through June 2022.  Additional engagement data that has not yet been incorporated into the final engagement report is provided below for review.    [This is shown in bold on the webpage.]

The General Plan update process has involved several different engagement strategies to ensure broad participation. The engagement is ongoing. This is the initial draft report and a final report will be completed at the end of the process. This working draft collates engagement efforts and input to-date. The final report, along with a report of the recommendations, will inform the decision makers before adopting the General Plan updates.  [Bold added.]

On the webpage, there is no new public engagement data shown. One year afte that paragraph was written and after the initial draft of the Engagement Report came out. Zero — none.

It is not appropriate to supply information necessary for good decision-making at the close of the process. It must be supplied as the process evolves — so everyone can see the direction and what’s gone into making the decisions. Seeing what the public wanted two years ago only at the end — when the entire plan has been developed — comes close to defeating the purpose the engagement.

The draft Engagement Report document has a last update of 6/21/2022. This is one year ago, as of June 2023

Here is what’s still in the Engagement Report as of June, 2023 — one year after it was released.

 

“Executive Summary — To be developed prior to finalizing report.” it says.

There has never been and likely never will be a “finalized” report.

The report is shown as a “Draft” but it was never returned to for update or completion. As such, it is an incomplete document of far less value than if had been finished. 

Without summaries, this report is just a listing of facts — and is missing lots of the facts, too. It does not provide information that a City Council could use for aid in actually making a decision.

The article on Arcata1.com about this purposely incomplete Engagement Report can be seen here. That article is from June 17, 2022, right when the report was first released. The Engagement Report was said to be a “living document” — but here we are, nine months later twelve months later, and nothing has changed. There is no Executive Summary, and there is no compilation of what the people of Arcata wrote at that January 2022 Open House meeting. 
City’s Open House “Engagement Report” is finally (almost) here

The Engagement Report, Table of Contents:

The absent Executive Summary.

Below is the image what’s still in the Engagement Report as of June, 2023 — one year after it was released. “Executive Summary — To be developed prior to finalizing report.” it says.
There has never been and likely never will be a “finalized” report.

The Sea Level Rise Risk Assessment report from April, 2018 — Also no Executive Summary

Just as in the Engagement Report, there’s a “placeholder” but no actual entry for an Executive Summary.

Here’s Page 2 of the City of Arcata Sea Level Rise Risk Assessment report.

And here is Page 3.  (Red box was added.)

And this is what is on the City’s website now (March 2023):

There was never an Executive Summary presented or included.
Never.