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The Oregon Consensus Program provides a number of services across a range of public issues. Our services are not limited to any particular issue area. However, we do have programs developing in particular areas that focus on increasing the use of collaborative processes in these areas, improving the types of processes used and building the expertise of neutrals to handle these particular types of cases. The following specific programs are developed or developing at this time.
Land Use and Economic Development | Natural Resources | Transportation |
Human Services, Education and Health Care | Evaluation of Collaborative Agreement Seeking Processes
Land Use and Economic Development
The OCP has an agreement with the Department of Land Conservation and Development to handle the referrals from the Land Use Board of Appeals requesting mediation services. We have just completed services under a $58,000 grant in the 2003-2005 biennium to assess and provide mediation services to land use cases across the state. We expect to renew a similar grant in the '05-'07 biennium.
With the passage of Ballot Measure 37 requiring compensation for losses in value due to certain land use regulations or "waiver" of those regulations, we see more need for use of collaborative approaches to work out the details of such claims or waivers, and to develop real solutions that can be implemented without protracted litigation. We are working with mediators and parties on all sides of these issues to provide the assistance that will be most helpful in the particular situation.
We are also working with Community Dispute Resolution Centers across Oregon to identify and assess land use, development and other public disputes in their communities. We believe we can develop an effective network across the state for assisting parties to collaborate on these issues.
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Natural Resources
Public policy dispute resolution developed in Oregon initially around natural resource issues, and has continued to play a strong role in working out collaborative solutions to difficult, complex environmental and natural resource issues. We work at the state, federal and local levels to address these issues. We encourage addressing them in a proactive manner before the issues become extremely polarized, but we are able to provide service at any stage. We have a cadre of well trained mediators who can work with a wide range of natural resource issues.
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Transportation
The Oregon Program has a history of providing innovative services related to difficult transportation issues. We are continuing to build on this history, and are developing the expertise to help address transportation issues from individual projects to long term planning and prioritization.
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Human Services, Education and Health Care
Some day these will each be individual programs. Now they are grouped as an emerging area in which we are developing specialized approaches to identify and assist in policy issues. We are utilizing the research done by the National Policy Consensus Center to develop models of collaboration around health care access issues. Services are ongoing in special education related issues and a variety of other human services issues.
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Evaluation of Collaborative Agreement Seeking Processes
Oregon has been a leader in working with the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution and the Policy Consensus Initiative (PCI) and a few other states to develop a systematic approach to evaluation of collaborative processes. We are currently establishing a web-based system that will gather data on every completed case. We are cooperating in a large grant funded process being undertaken by the US Institute to analyze data from a large base of cases.
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