Dr. Robert Herold. Retired professor of Government and Public Policy at Eastern Washington University. Currently a columnist for the Inlander and commentator for KPBX Spokane Public Radio.

Dr. Bill Mester. Superintendent, Mead School District. He has worked as a psychologist, special education teacher, principal, and superintendent in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington.

Ms. Betsy Wilkerson. President, Women Helping Women. While serving as president of a non-profit organization, Betsy holds a full-time job at Moore's Boarding Home. In her "spare time" she serves on the boards of the Health Improvement Partnership and the Junior League.

Facilitators: Doug Floyd (Spokesman-Review) and Dr. Lunnell Haught (Haught Strategies)

Doug Floyd introduced the following Principles of Civic Leadership that serve as the springboard for this discussion. These principles are a combination of Leadership Spokane and Spokane Institute for Neighborhood Leadership ideas. They are based on the ideas identified by Robert Greenleaf in Servant Leadership, David Crislip and other communication thinkers and actors.

Principles of Civic Leadership

1. Civic leaders draw the community together in dialogue, looking for new insights with which to build public-supported decisions. They seek first to understand, then to be understood. They respect the public’s need to struggle with complex issues on the way to public judgment.
2. Civic leaders seek out and encourage the participation of every stakeholder, even reluctant ones. They respectfully consider all input. They seek solutions that tap all of the community’s talents and abilities. They practice collaboration.
3. Civic leaders begin with a result in mind, that result being measured not in terms of laws enacted or programs implemented but of measurable improvement in public life.
4. Civic leaders are alert to public concerns. They understand constituent needs and recognize a duty at times to be an advocate for the initiatives of others.
5. Civic leaders exhibit personal trustworthiness, reliability and integrity, accepting accountability for their actions and decisions. They maintain an open process and do not manipulate the truth or other people for personal ends.
6. Civic leaders hold power in trust, knowing it is on loan to them for the promotion of community goals, not special interests or personal agendas.

The challenge in civic leadership may be contained in the advice of Confucius, that leaders govern for the benefit of the people. Peter Senge argues that we need to be open to changes of the mind; i.e., the mental models by which we understand and out of which we act. Despair is a form of powerlessness that grows out of the way we think—we have little power to affect the large issues so we give ourselves to those issues that seem manageable. We might, instead, see ourselves as "part of the unfolding."

Bill Mester

These principles are skills or disciplines, capacities, that can be learned, refined, and enhanced.

The purpose of the public schools is to prepare a well-educated citizenry capable of conversations of this kind.

Dialogue necessarily has a non-rational framework—competing and sometimes conflicting points of view that are both (all) legitimate. This, again, demands skills to manage this kind of complexity. Dialogue is one of these skills—an agreement that we will agree to "think through these things together." This involves a willingness to suspend judgment, to allow differing sets of assumptions, and to listen (by dismissing the "talk and chatter" that typically goes on in our head). Listen to understand, not to respond.

If you are in dialogue, do you have the courage to be responsive to the other person? If you are a collaborator, do we have the ability to co-create, co-learn, and co-do?

Betsy Wilkerson

The perspectives of persons about what these mean depends on what our particular on-ramp is--our personal history, etc.

Table Observation: Although most of us accept diversity as a category, we have more difficulty internalizing it so that it is expressed in our living.

Robert Herold. A Perspective on Spokane.

Dilemma: How does one be pointed without being confrontational?

How are we doing in Spokane in applying this list of principles? Not well. Some observations.

• If we were doing well, there would be other kinds of conflict resolution in town and higher voter turnouts. We've tried to solve issue resolution with structural changes but our underlying methodology of resolution hasn't changed.
• There is no such thing as a community conversation. Conversation infers intimacy. Dialogue and discussion are possible, however, for a community. They involve controversy and must issue some action in order to be meaningful. To turn dialogue productive will involve the systematic organization of government (perhaps involving a modified return to a time when party affiliation told you something about the person and their positions because party discipline existed).
• We don't know how to debate in public. It is not considered appropriate to debate or take issue.

• If we want these principles to be active, we must change Spokane’s climate, which demands a change of culture. In the meantime, there are some small things we can do:
• Boosterism is the practice of "everyone pulling on the same oar." However, boosterism creates problems when you try to apply the principles under discussion. Boosterism is fine if you're trying to put on Bloomsday; it is not good if you are trying to do something more fundamentally important.
• Spokane's economy is not the result of low pay or the lack of jobs. Investment in the arts changes the climate, which positively impacts the culture; it doesn't happen the other way around. Tying onto Bill Mester’s point about education, we need to "prepare a well-educated citizenry"; not to get better paying jobs. This suggests the importance of moving the conversation to the more fundamental, rather than the peripheral, issues that so often receive primary attention.
• Daniel Elazar’s typology from American Federalism was offered as a prism through which to understand Spokane's present status, which infers solutions.

Generalized Discussion

• How can we get to the level where productive debate can occur? It must address the issues rather than devolving to attack on persons.
• Is it a valid assumption that, if we invite them, they will come? Probably not. Given Spokane’s history, culture, and climate, if you have private property, you can weigh in at the eleventh hour on any issue and exert a disproportionate influence and those who "come" will probably be the propertied.