Gellar
Well-known member
On two different occasions at my current employer and my former employer I was part of a battle as a public agency trying to build a public visitors/nature center. Both instances had similar problems, but they were handled differently. One was ultimately successful, one is still battling 20 years later to get a visitors/nature center built. In both instances I was a part of the team, but by no means was I the leader on the project, but I did get to present at my fair share of public meetings regarding the matter. Some of the similar problems that both instances had were the majority of the public was in favor of the project, but the minority who were not in favor of the project were very vocal saying nasty, often times outright lies about the agency and its staff. At the project that was not successful nothing was done to get out in front of the negative and some of the staff were spreading the negative, false information. It ultimately ended the momentum of the project. At the project that was successful, the entire staff believed whole heartedly in the project and we were able to get key community members to also believe in the project. A turning point in the project was when the Catholic priest in town wrote an op-ed in favor of the project for the better of the community. The successful project had a plan and we were confident in our plan, the unsuccessful project had no clear plan as to how they were going to achieve their end goal. Stress was a major problem and in fact it almost sent my boss at the time to the grave because of the negative effects it had on him and how he coped with it health wise.
Some take aways for me looking back are that you need to know you have a good fight. The majority of people were in favor our project. Just like the majority of people want quality water for drinking. No matter the outcome, someone is always going to be pissed off. There is nothing you can do about that, you cannot make everyone happy. Believe in your argument and be dam sure that your entire office, board, or whatever believes in that argument as well. Get allies in the community who are willing to stick their neck out for you, whether its respected business leaders, the superintendent of the school, or the Catholic Priest. The local newspaper was huge for us in the succesful campaign, the negative campaign would send in op-ed letters or get in front of crowds at public meetings and the local paper would write the tone of the articles in a slant towards our project while still acknowledging the concerns of the opposition. Or if an op-ed was flat out lying or an attack on our staff like many of them were the newspaper would not run them.
