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the city council's consideration. The Facilitator will regularly test for consensus and common ground and where it can be found, it will be documented. 5. The Development Team representatives will be active participants in the discussion and they will ultimately decide exactly how they respond to the opinions and concerns that are generated during the process. 6. The Stakeholder Advisory Panel meetings will be open to the public, but they will not be public hearings. The Facilitator will accommodate some questions and comments from the public, but the primary focus of the meetings will be on the Panel members. 7. Members of the Advisory Panel will be selected to reflect a sampling of the opinions of inembers of various interests (neighborhoods, area businesses, city boards and commissions, etc). The members do not officially speak on behalf of the group they represent. [Note: this is a very, very important point and one that is often misunderstood and the cause of great confusion and discontent. For example in the context of the Advisory Panel, the Planning Commission Chair will speak on his own behalf and not as the official representative of the commission's position. The Planning Commission has an established role and procedures and they will conduct hearings and take an official action that is separate and distinct from the Advisory Panel process. Likewise, neighborhood representatives will offer their own reactions, suggestions and concerns and that is not expected to reflect an official neighborhood position. Fellow neighborhood property owners are free to participate in the public process and they may feel very differently than the Advisory Panel member who represents their neighborhood.] 8. The Advisory Panel is truly more like a sophisticated focus group, versus a recommending body. 9. The Advisory Panel will not have a chair and they will neither officially vote on issues, nor make a formal recommendation as a group. The Facilitator will conduct the meetings, all viewpoints will be recorded and all points of consensus and disagreement will be recorded to inform the development team and the city council and its advisory boards and commissions. 10. The Facilitator will serve in a neutral capacity. While the Facilitator will be responsible for summarizing the Panel input including the graphic visualization of ideas and suggestions and much of this work may influence the master plan, the development team will be responsible for preparing the actual master plan and other planning application materials. ADVISORY PANEL SELECTION PROCESS: The final comments that I will offer relate to the selection of the Advisory Panel itself. As simplistic as it may seem, there is no substitute for a positive attitude. Therefore, I would advise against selecting a representative from a business that has been, or is likely to be in an adversarial relationship with the city, for whatever reason. I also suggest that there is a good case to be made for including people who have not been heavily involved in the past and for not including people who have strongly advocated for any given position in the past. These individuals and groups can and will participate in the public process and their voices will be heard. This process works best when the participants are open From the Desk of. ... John W. Shardlow • President • 300 1" Ave. N. ■ Suite 210 • Minneapolis., MN 55401 612-339-3300 • faa� -612-337-5601