Environmental stewardship often requires more than “acting locally.” It often requires “acting regionally” as well. Consider plans for restoration of the Everglades, which covers more than 16 Florida counties and nearly 18,000 square miles. Such projects increasingly require more innovative forms of cooperation and communication among governments, communities and other stakeholders to achieve long-term success.

Strategies to bring such regional cooperation were the focus of a mid-November conference co-sponsored by CUES. Through the conference theme of “Regional Stewardship from the Top Down AND the Bottom Up,” participants explored how state and local governments are successfully embracing regional problem-solving strategies for improving local government through municipal cooperation, better ways to communicate regional issues to key constituents and ways to identify community leaders able to implement change.

The conference was the fourteenth national forum of the Alliance for Regional Stewardship (ARS). CUES is a member of ARS and served as the lead sponsor of the conference along with other sponsors such as Florida Power and Light, PBS&J, the Regional Business Alliance, Cambridge Systematics, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, the Communities of Tampa Bay, and the South Florida and Treasure Coast Regional Planning Councils. Over one hundred people participated in the Forum held at the Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, including Florida’s Secretary of Community Affairs, Thaddeus Cohen and several state representatives. For more information about the ARS, see http://www.regionalstewardship.org/. CUES participates in the network as part of its regional initiatives. For more information on these initiatives, please contact MaryBeth Burton at mburton@fau.edu.

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CUES Senior Research Fellow Nick Bollman has been assisting in the coordination of a national/multi-state project, The States Initiative (TSI), a partnership among The Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, Smart Growth America, the Governors’ Smart Growth Leadership Institute, and state “smart growth” leaders from 18 states. TSI is a nonpartisan project intended to assist gubernatorial candidates and Governors-elect to embrace and promote “new smart growth” policies and programs. “New smart growth” is the phrase by which TSI makes explicit the connection among traditional growth planning issues (such as transportation, housing and environmental conservation) and current issues of concern to the general public (such as climate change; energy independence/alternative energy sources; and economic competitiveness in the global marketplace). The project is based on these working assumptions: a) that state policy has a major impact on the ability of local governments, nonprofit organizations and business and development interests to formulate and execute smart growth strategies; b) that Governors are or could be major determinants of such state policies; c) that Governors are at a heightened interest in fashioning their policy priorities when running for office and during the first several weeks after elected, when forming their administrations (or re-forming them, in the case of re-elected Governors); d) that public opinion, and the language used to respond to or shape that opinion during the electoral cycle may help leverage interest in smart growth among gubernatorial candidates and Governors-elect; and e) that engagement by state organizations with candidates and governors-elect that enable them to understand and embrace the language and ideas of smart growth could have major and lasting impact on how they govern, if elected.

During the campaign period TSI conducted a series of routine email exchanges and weekly conference calls among and with the State Leader organizations. TSI provided expert and peer-to-peer guidance on how to bring appealing ideas and language to candidates. In the post-election period TSI will provide “transition” technical assistance in conjunction with State Leader organizations or in states where such partners do not exist, directly to selected Governors-elect and their staffs. This assistance will provide “best practices” guidance on smart growth-related policy and budget matters, Administrative organization and strategies for partnership with legislative leaders and key interest organizations. TSI will produce a “lessons learned” report at the end of this project, to be distributed widely among funders and smart growth-interested nonprofit organizations and policy influentials. Director Jim Murley has been an active participant in TSI from the state of Florida.

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The Florida Public Officials Design Institute at Abacoa, dedicated to improving South Florida communities by offering training in smart growth and design, hosted its eighth session in Jupiter, on November 2nd & 3rd, 2006. The Design Institute is a program of the Center for Urban & Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University and was held on the Jupiter Campus of FAU. Four public officials learned first hand how to apply sound design principles to their communities, based upon projects they had selected. November's session included the communities of the City of Ft. Pierce, Indian River County, Town of Jupiter and Town of Sewall's Point.

The two-day session began with teams of design experts visiting the communities for site tours by the officials and presentations by staff. Later that evening, on November 2nd, there was a public keynote lecture by Michael Wallwork, internationally recognized traffic engineer and transit designer, at the Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus Auditorium. The lecture was titled, "Transportation & a Sense of Place -- How to Have Both."

The second day of the Design Institute consisted of an all day workshop during which the design team addressed the challenges of each community’s project. Through brainstorming sessions, the team suggested ideas, developed alternative solutions and made recommendations for the participating public officials.

This session of the Design Institute was especially rewarding as just prior to the public lecture, the Design Institute received an award from 1000 Friends of Florida, a statewide community watchdog group. 1000 Friends President Lester Abberger and Executive Director Charles Pattison presented the Design Institute with their Better Community Award, for its innovative approach to promoting the principles of smart growth and design throughout the region. The Better Community Award recognizes “plans that have been implemented and projects which are completed that use the principles of smart growth to create livable, vital environments.” For more information please visit: www.floridadesigninstitute.org.

Lester Abberger presents 1000 Friends award to Marie York and Mary Beth Hartman.

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On November 29, CUES Director Jim Murley moderated the second meeting of the Resource Advisory Panel (RAP) for the Martin County Development Patterns Study. Meeting at two strategic times in the planning process, the RAP was designed to provide the views and knowledge of state level interest groups and selected experts in fields related to the study. RAP members offered comments designed to refine and improve the planning products and provided information on best practices and lessons learned from other areas. CUES Senior Fellow Jean Scott served as the panel coordinator. Convening technical resource and peer review panels to provide an added level of review at evaluation in public and private planning processes is a service of CUES. The process helps to ensure that planning products are underpinned by the best possible data and assumptions and hold up under technical scrutiny, which in the end, results in more successful plans.

(For more information on the use of these panels, contact Jim Murley, 954-762-5255. Information on the Martin County Development Patterns Study can be obtained from Dave Barth, the Project Manager for Glatting Jackson, the project consultant [561-561-659], or from Nicki vanVonno, Director of the Martin County Growth Management Department [772-288-5495].

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