“Portsmouth Listens” History
Study Circles in Portsmouth began as an effort to mobilize hundreds of parents and students around issues of bullying and violence prevention in the city’s middle school. After several incidents and concerns, parent Jim Noucas worked with the schools to create a dialogue.
- Sixth graders talked with 75 adults from the community about concerns about violence at the middle school. They identified the most significant issue as bullying and asked for more adult supervision in areas where it occurred. Perhaps more importantly, adults were amazed at what these 12 year olds articulated, and the 12 year olds were amazed that the adults actually listened to them.
The process was subsequently used in the Portsmouth Schools to develop a plan for redistricting the elementary schools. After Pease Air Force base closed, the city had to go from four elementary schools to three. What was the best way to do it? The issue was so fraught with emotion the school system had been unable to move on the task for 10 years. Parents were anxious about sending their children to a different neighborhood school.
- A school board member who was a facilitator of the Safe and Respectful School Dialogue suggested a study circle approach. Jim Noucas recruited approximately 115 residents who went through four-week study circles and reported their finding to the school board. The resulting plan developed by the school board received broad support for increased funding of school renovations, and resulted in only 65 students switching from one school to another.
Having witnessed the success of those efforts, the city, the chamber of commerce, Jim, John Tabor and others decided to use study circles to involve residents in the strategic Master Plan review process. The willingness of the city to use a dialogue process to enhance Portsmouth quality of life was key. The organizing team became known as “Portsmouth Listens”, which has grown into an all-volunteer group of citizens committed to facilitating dialogue in Portsmouth on issues critical to making Portsmouth the best place to live and work for everyone.
- The Portsmouth Listens Master Plan study circles involved three phases over two years involving over 400 citizens. The Master Plan adopted the Vision Statement developed by the study circles. A second round focused on specific areas like transportation, open space and sustainability, the character of downtown, or building community. In this round residents planned out the vision that was the consensus of Phase One, and worked together through dot voting to set priorities. A third phase gave specifics about implementation. The resulting master plan was largely driven by the vision and energy of the citizen dialogue, and has provided a roadmap for much of Portsmouth’s policy and infrastructure initiatives since 2004.
A major finding of the master plan study circles was the need for a more sustainable way of living in the city. Members of this Phase II study circle group, energized by the process, branched out to lead more than 80 residents through 8-week study circles on sustainability. In addition, the city trained its entire leadership on the sustainability framework of The Natural Step. The sustainability fair last month was a celebration of this work and a way to “take it to the streets.”
Lastly, Portsmouth Listens went on this year to hold roundtable candidate forums for local elections and the dialogue night on the city budget mentioned in our annual report earlier.
Many of you here are veterans of our study circles and have seen first hand how study circles are a neutral, but powerful method of public decision-making on the major issues facing the community.
We have come to recognize these keys to success….
- Because Study Circles require citywide recruiting, and a lot of communication and organization, the opportunities for large-issue dialogue is probably limited to once or twice a year. At least with the all-volunteer capacity we have right now.
- Study Circles require lots of facilitators. We welcome any or all of you signing up to do this! It’s rewarding work.
- Dialogue must happen early enough in an issue’s life that we can affect the outcome –the Master Plan is a good example.
- Their must always be a bridge between the steering committee and elected officials.
- It takes 60 days to get study circles off the ground, and as part of the bridge to the elected officials, there must be a committee of volunteers and stakeholders that includes city officials. This committee must meet regularly and share ideas on the question, the process, the timing and how to use the input.
- Lastly, the citizens involved must be from all parts of the community economically and demographically. That takes extra recruiting in certain populations.
When it’s all said and done, thought the results are usually remarkable:
“Last night (report out from PMS Dialogue Study Circles) was an amazing experience—from which we are probably all still recovering! I think in many, many ways it was a watershed experience for the City of Portsmouth with ramifications which will extend far beyond the current issue of location of the Middle School. First, it was a demonstration of the power of a well-thought out Master Plan and its role in helping citizens hold government accountable. It shows how a cohesive plan and application of that plan in a systematic way is the modern version of the Town meeting practice—New England democracy in the 21st century. Second, it showed the face of contemporary local citizenry—it’s not the small group of perpetually angry guys who show up at public comment—but thoughtful, well-spoken people who are willing to discuss values and principles in addition to taxes and land use, and are willing to get involved if they see the path to do so. Third, it showed me that the younger people who have chosen to live here have taken up the mantle of defending the historical traditions of Portsmouth—Finally, there can be no going back to the old ways of doing things for anyone who was there.”