Nick Vlahos & Derek Okubo on Reform & Engagement

In my town of Hudson, I have been advocating for new forms of civic engagement for a while. It’s a long story, but the short version is this : our small city struggles to do what it needs to do, and the spaces we have for having conversations about what to do next weren’t built for the social media age.

It was clear to me, early, that we would need new spaces custom built and strong enough to hold the conversations we need to have. This led me to the concept of a citizens assembly - and to the world of civic engagement. A few interviews follow this thread of civic design and engagement and offer a diversion from the world of ethnography, brand marketing and cultural strategy.

This conversation is one of those, with leaders in this space, working to innovate democratic participation at one of our nation’s oldest organizations.

Nick Vlahos is Deputy Director at National Civic League's Center for Democracy Innovation. He holds a PhD in political science, authored a book on British devolution, and previously worked on civic engagement initiatives in Canada and Australia.

Derek Okubo, is Director of Civic Assistance at National Civic League, and led Denver's Human Rights agency from 2011-2023. Previously, he worked for Big Brothers, Governor Romer's office, and the National Civic League, where he facilitated nationwide planning efforts. He serves on several Japanese-American organization boards.

The TIME magazine article, “What Jimmy Carter Taught us About Civic Populism”

So, Nick and Derek, thank you both for accepting my invitation. I start these conversations with a question borrowed from a friend who helps people tell their stories. It's a big question, and you're in complete control of how you answer it. The question is: Where do you come from? Either of you can go first.

Nick Vlahos : I guess the first thing that I would say is, where I come from is a small ish prairie town in the center of Canada, Winnipeg Manitoba. And, you know, I currently live in Toronto for the past 15 years. So, I'm Canadian by birth, I work for the National Civic League, I worked for the Center for Delivered Democracy and Global Innovation in, in, in Canberra Australia so I'm just really, you know, I'm globally focused on my, you know, you know, thinking about democracy innovation in a variety of different contexts. And so you know my background really is really interested in participatory deliberative democracy, community development, and any form of public decision making that can really elevate people's quality of lives to better forms of decision making processes. Beautiful.

Derek Okubo: I’m glad you took it first. I come from a Japanese American family. I’m a fourth generation in this country of my family. I come from a history of where my family experienced. Very unconstitutional acts in this country where they were imprisoned during World War Two lost everything from their business to their businesses to their house to their feeling of security, and then restarted all over again after the released from the camps, and, and which probably played a big role, as far as that history in my own work that I've done in community as far as civil rights, as far as advocating for the underrepresented in this country in our communities. I worked with the National Civic League for 20 years, and then received an appointment from one of my former staff members who was elected mayor of the city and county of Denver, and he appointed me to be his executive director of the Agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships. So I did that for 12 years.

And then we turned out in July of 2023. I started my own little gig and have been working since I came back to the National Civic League halftime to help with specific projects around the country, again. But yeah, for 20 years with the Civic League, I did a lot of work around the country in communities, whether it was strategic planning or dealing with specific issues.

Yeah, I'm so honored to be speaking with both of you. I really do appreciate you being here with me. And before we get into sort of the nuts and bolts of the National Civic League and charter reform and all that. I was curious, what do you love about the work? Like, where's the joy in this for each of you?

Nick Vlahos: Yeah, I mean, the real joy for me is working with people. I mean, I started I cut my teeth in community development and social housing communities working with underrepresented groups, specifically on community economic development and different forms of participatory decision making related to how to, you know, how to establish, you know, positions and roles and jobs for for the youth in specific communities.

And so it really is on the ground, speaking to people and seeing the fruits of, you know, the good processes that bring people to have conversations together. And I think part of that is also, you know, learning over the years and being present over the years in some spaces where or public for where there really isn't civil discourse or dialogue or structured conversation and things like that. And so the real joy for me is seeing collaborative efforts come to fruition and people problem solve because I think naturally we are problem solvers and we give people a task to solve a problem collectively, then they come together with a shared vision for that.

Derek Okubo: Just to kick back off of what Nick said, I learned very early that this work awakens a belief in the people. And just like what Nick said, I mean, I'm in the work I've done around the country and in my own communities. When people come together with a wide ranging perspective and they come in, we share the good information, we develop the vision. And I mean, I've seen where people have thought things were impossible to accomplish where they actually did across a wide range of perspectives. And so it really has just left me with a belief in people.

Beautiful. So I wanted to start maybe just could you tell, I mean, so I only encountered National Civic League, I think within the past few years in my own efforts, you know, I live in a small town and there's conversation about charter reform and I bump into the National Civic League, but I don't know that I had really been aware before. So what do people need to know about the National Civic League, its history and what it's doing?

Nick Vlahos Let you take that one, Derek.

Derek Okubo: Well, yeah, I'll just start with the nation's oldest good government organization founded in 1894 by a bunch of young civic rebel rousers of that time period. I mean, we're talking about a young Theodore Roosevelt, young Louis Brandeis, a young Marshall Fields, just that came together that we're really concerned about how local government was working at the time. It was very dysfunctional, highly corrupt, and they came together to address that issue. And about six years later, came up with the first model city charter to address how local government can be run more effectively.

And as you know, a lot of those folks became the reformers of this country. And so since that time, they've kind of laid the groundwork, developed the DNA of our organization as far as participatory local government, collaborative decision making, working together across perspectives across all sectors to address local issues. And that's something that we do on a daily basis. Nick, do you have something to add?

Nick Vlahos: Yeah, I just think that it's interesting. I mean, I've been with the organization for two years now, you know, our in-house National Civic Review is over 100 years old. We've been celebrating communities through their local civic action and innovation for 75 years through the All American City Awards.

We've been advocating for, you know, structural forms of city government, which have ranged and have different over time. Initially, you know, I think that city manager form of government is one in our model city charter, but also electoral reform. And so thinking about this in terms of, you know, celebrating community and civic culture and also democracy innovations is something that that sort of thread that persists all the way today.

And so we have two programs within the National Civic League. One is the Center for Democracy Innovation. And I'm part of that with the director Matt Linegar and we really focus on multi channel opportunities, digital in person facilitated conversations. And then we have Civic Genius, which recently joined under our umbrella and they focus on deliberate forms of engagement like citizens assemblies and you know a program they have called It's Your America. So we're really thinking about democracy innovation for the 21st century in different ways that we might want to innovate those processes within the formal structures of government within communities and more broadly. And so that sort of brings us to, you know, eventually what we'll talk about, which is city charters.

Derek Okubo: And I'll just add, you know, the All America City Award that has been around for many years, and it started by George Gallup when he was our board chair. And if you look back at Look magazine, they would publish the All America football team, you know, every year and he had a proposal. We have an All America City Award. And again, the concept is the same type of thing. It's when a community comes together as a team to address challenging issues and show results. They should be recognized for that teamwork. And so that's where the All America City Award came from way back when, from.

There's a sign that I think Albany was in All America City and I'd seen that in that sort of the green New York State Thruway signage for a very long time and not knowing where it came from. So that's pretty awesome.

Nick Vlahos Yeah, I do want to jump on that, you know, there's different ways of celebrating community as well that we do and, you know, the All America City more really the flagship program. But we just recently launched a healthy democracy map, you know, near 10,000 organizations from across the country. So we're really trying to visualize geographically the different types of networks and organizations that exist. So there really is a plethora of different ways that we want to enhance and support, you know, civic engagement at a variety of different levels.

I'm curious how you would describe the current state of civic engagement. As someone living in a small town, I feel like the spaces we’ve traditionally used for important conversations aren’t holding together the way they were meant to in the past. Social media has made things more complicated and divisive, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. How would you describe the state of civic engagement today? Also, the idea of innovating democracy feels strange to a lot of people. When I talk about it, some don’t really know how to wrap their heads around the concept of innovating something so foundational. I’d love to hear whichever one of you wants to tackle this.

Nick Vlahos: Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I guess there's maybe sort of two parallel things that I would think about this is one that you know there really is a lot of interesting research that tracks public attitudes towards government. There really is a challenge that governments are facing and elected officials are facing in terms of the apathy towards specific political institutions, maybe not necessarily democracy but at least foundational or or specific types of institutions. So that really is a significant challenge that we have to look at so the state of where we're at is, you know, one is that public attitudes are changing.

Simultaneously you have, you know, specific actors, in some cases they're bad actors, which really are trying to, you know, take away democratic rights in specific contexts and so we see at least globally at a global level, there has been a decline of democracy in some instances. And then the other parallel that I come from and let's just think of this maybe more at a local or a neighborhood or a community level and take away the noise that happens at the national level through national media.

There's just so much work that's happening on the ground in communities that is trying to elevate people's quality of life and create the sort of sinews that build a civic infrastructure locally. Sometimes it's more happening desperately in different geographies and places but on the ground, you can see just a lot of work like we have thousands of organizations in our healthy democracy map. There are other maps like the SNF Agora, John Hawkins, who's charted something like 500,000 orgs, but they include a lot larger, you know, faith-based institutions and the like, you know, Boys and Girls Clubs.

So there's so many different ways we want to think about democracy and it's not simply at the national level through the national media and, you know, completely, you know, thinking about democracy is declining and in peril and that's probably a strong case. But what else is happening and how do we elevate and support these groups that are actually trying to do the good work in their communities to save and, you know, democracy or even just promote, you know, being a good neighbor.

Derek Okubo: Yeah, and I remember, Peter, way back when I started with the Civic League in 1992, that we were having to make a case for collaborative decision making, you know, to teach local government leaders the art of convening. And I think that was the main focus of the work that I did when I was there for the 20 years was that capacity building the art of convening, facilitating, bringing the different But knowing how to identify the different perspectives and then working them through a process in which they can, these diverse views can come together and find the things that they do agree on and develop solutions and strategies to address the issues.

I think that when I left the Civic League, you know, and so what had happened, we had built and nationally there are other organizations who had built a lot of leadership that understood it and got it and we're doing it on a regular basis. I remember after I left the Civic League, the International City County Management Association, the executive director asked me to come and do a workshop for their annual conference and I had 250 people in this workshop and I asked how many of you have ever done a citizen based strategic plan. And two of the 250 raised their hands.

And what that told me is that, you know, a lot of the folks that we have worked with, they had retired, you know, and they had left and we're having to start another cycle, as far as the art of convening, the art of doing meetings in a different way. And so I think that that is something that we're doing again, you know, as far as teaching localities, how to convene, how to run meetings in a more effective way in a different way. And it's just something that I've learned, even in the work that I did within the local government as executive director of a department, we go through cycles and we're going through another cycle.

Nick Vlahos: Yeah, I also want to pick up on your last point, Peter, where, you know, like how we even think about democracy innovation which views are kind of strange and thinking about this sort of context. And I just want to point out, like, I mean, I guess I have sort of an academic approach to this where I don't read history sort of backward, and I start at democracy as, as, you know, a God given right. It's a process. It's a struggle. It's a relationship. It's not finite. It's not completely entrenched. It needs to be reworked over time, and it needs to be fought for. And so when you think about that historically the different variations of institutional reforms that come and go.

We're at that moment where we need to innovate things. There're so many institutions that are foundational to a democracy that just aren't serving the people and the public in the way that they should. And, and we're right for different forms of innovations that give the public a lot more voice than they're given.

In Hudson, there’s been ongoing conversation about potential improvements through charter reform. Right now, there’s a petition circulating for charter revisions, including a shift from a strong mayor system to a city manager system, along with other proposed changes. The reason I wanted to have this conversation is to get a solid understanding of charter reform—kind of a Charter Reform 101. For people in Hudson who may be listening, what do they need to know? What is the city charter, what is reform about, and why do communities pursue it? I was surprised to learn there’s a model city charter—a kind of template that a community like Hudson can use as a starting point. So, I’m curious: how do you guide communities that want to go through a charter reform process?

Derek Okubo: Well, you know, one of the first things I always check out is why do they want to do a charter revision. Because just revising the charter itself is not a solution. I mean, sometimes it's a leadership issue, it's not by the leadership so you want to be clear as far as what is the issue.

The, as far as the charter itself, you know, what it is is that it's the local constitution, you know, it has the different articles that outline the structure of government, the roles and responsibilities. And some of the procedures that the local government would have to go through. It is not one that gets real specific, it's more of an overarching document if you get into the weeds.

Things that a lot of times are better addressed and the charter should be something that won't change a lot over time, you know, gives that framework that is going to be sturdy. But as far as the process to do it, again, you know, looking at why, and then going through the process, identifying what within it needs to be updated and revised, and then determining what the desired outcome is and putting together that language in there. But I don't know, Nick, do you have something to add?

Nick Vlahos: I just think it's, I mean, like you said, Peter, we have a model city charter that goes back literally over 100 years to help support communities so this is, this is something that's been happening for a long time and I, you know, and I can't be more excited about this and maybe this is sort of the democracy that I'm seeing here to me but how often do you have a chance to work on a constitution, you know what I mean and how do you get the public really involved and interested in this. And, and the history of this is that there is over 100 years of direct plebiscitary public engagement like the opportunity to participate in this and have the final vote, because much of these go to referenda.

It's a really interesting dynamic of thinking about the structure of government and how it connects to community. And, you know, that sort of interplay and and it's, we're at that moment in time where our institutions need to evolve, and this is one of those opportunities. You know, a national constitution doesn't change but a local one does. And, and how cool is that that you can think about a new way to engage people to get them confident in government, but also think about what you might want to put into it, you know, and that's sort of what excites me and there's really, you know, there's a lot of opportunity, at least in the next Yeah, in our model city charter, we're in our addition of it.

Derek Okubo: So it's gone through nine transformations over 100 years. And, and it's just, we will update that probably every 10 to 20 years as well because times and circumstances change, we have to evolve as well.

So, the process in Hudson has been, I believe that they took the current city charter and did they just really just did revisions within the document. And in order to make these shifts. What's the, how is it different to start with a model city charter versus starting with our current city charter to make the kind of revisions that you would want to make.

Derek Okubo: Well, you know, and I'm not familiar with the Hudson city charter. So, is your city charter. Currently, well he said you're currently a strong mayor and you're considering changing to a more of a manager council manager form.

I guess the question is what's the benefit of the Model City Charter versus starting with whatever we have sort of an old what I assume is sort of an old charter.

Derek Okubo: Well, our model city charter really gives the framework for a certain form, a specific form which is the council manager form. And it very clearly articulates how that structure is put together, the roles and responsibilities of the different folks that are part of that structure, and what they're supposed to be doing. And then it goes into the other things like elections and budgeting and finance and things like that, but it just very clearly articulates the different roles and responsibilities of that council manager form.

Nick Vlahos: Just to jump in and build on that. I mean, I think, you know, to your point, Peter, like what's the benefit of the model city charter. I mean, two things is that sometimes these charters haven't been touched in decades. Where do you, where do you go to sort of learn about and you know are you know the model city charter which has a long history of, you know, the going back and being updated through legal experts and a lot of collaborators collaborators and civil society to develop sort of a framework to help support groups that might be a starting from scratch or me wanting to think about how you scope your existing charter and the other one is is like you know a lot of these, you know, going to the commission, generally speaking, a charter review commission is our our citizens. And they're not familiar with this and so we have an opportunity to provide you know what is that you know we have a guide to city charter, which is, you know, it's a little bit more of an older document, maybe 10 or 10 or so 10 or so years old but how do you run a charter process and then here's a template for the things that you might want to look at and and compare that to what's your existing charter. And then of course here from the public and the community what you would like to see.

Yeah, I have a very naive analogy in my mind that I'm, it's not that I'm good with cars but I just think about the charter or the government is the engine of a car or something and there's this opportunity to lift the hood and get in and just sort of tune everything is that is that is that helpful or accurate in any way.

Nick Vlahos: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think, you know, this is the thing that that we we tread with a model is that you know we do, while we do advocate for a city manager form of government, it is also stated within there that we recognize that all governments are they have strong principles of the process and one of the new the newest and latest ones in the ninth edition is that we were trying to focus on on language around equity and civic engagement and thinking about inserting these these processes as well. So, there's a, you know, a lot of different things to think about and it's one, it's one way that you might want to at least start with with your process. Yeah.

Derek, you mentioned earlier that we might be in a new era of reform, and I’m curious about that. Where are we in terms of the role of mayor versus city manager? It seems like there’s been a move toward the council-manager system. How do you talk about this shift? Historically, where do these two systems fit? I understand that each locality or community will make its own decision, but what’s the case for the council-manager system? Where does the strong mayor system come from, and how should I understand what the strong mayor system means for my small town in 2025?

Derek Okubo: Yeah, well the reason why the back in the start of the national back end was the National Municipal League, but as far as the idea of a model city charter was because the local governments were being so ineffective and inefficient and governing and addressing local issues. So there needed to be, while you had a council and a mayor that were out there leading they were also involved in the management of the local government and that's where a lot of the corruption and a lot of the inefficiencies were happening.

So the concept was that you had your elected body, you wanted them to lead, and then you needed a professional manager to keep house, you know, and that was the concept, you know, the separation of the powers. And so you had a professional that would manage the local government, the departments at the direction of the leadership, the elected leadership. And so that was the concept of trying to make local government more effective and more efficient. Now, today, you know the Council Manager form, I believe is still the largest, the most used forum in the world, as far as the structure of government.

The, and it's more, you'll see it more common in mid-sized communities to smaller communities when you're talking about bigger cities, you'll see more of a strong mayor type of a system, at least from my perspective. That's what I've seen. But the whole purpose is really to have the local government be as effective and efficient as possible. And by having that one who just really focuses on keeping house, you know that that's what, where a lot of the benefits come from, if that makes sense.

What about the process? I know it varies from state to state, but what kind of guidance do you give communities on how to initiate this kind of change? What are the best practices for starting a process like this? And what are the different ways communities can go about making these kinds of changes?

Derek Okubo: Well, a lot of it is driven by state law. The state, each state, what I found out is, and learned is that each state has different requirements, as far as charter change and charter revision. Some states, and I'm not sure how New York works, but some states don't require, or require state approval, you know, as far as charter changes or city charters being established. Or they require certain processes that locales have to go through with charter revisions or charter updates or creating their own city charter. So that's one of the first things is you would want to know what your state law requires.

Then as far as the locality, we have always advocated with citizen participation, charter commissions come in, made up of residents who participate and review the charter. Also, citizen engagement, whether it's public meetings or public forums, to get input on what they think needs to be looked at and reviewed. But through the Charter Commission, for instance, I just am finishing one up in South Dakota, the Charter Commission revised their city charter, updated it. They are now required to go to city council for approval of those changes, and then they have to put it out to ballot for the residents to vote on those changes and to approve them. And if they're approved within 30 days, they go into effect, but each state might do things a little bit different.

Nick Valhos: Yeah, I just want to, I mean, there's a few things I want to build on apologies if I repeat what you're saying, Derek, but to build on the initial point, I mean, you have the variation is going to start initially with the state law, but also home rule. So these are two different ways that you're going to see the ability for it to be convened and initiated and how it's going to take place on the one hand. So I have, I don't know if you have a second, but I have a forthcoming article coming out with David Schechter and Lynn Davis and we sort of outline this as the initiation, the form and the ratification. So, you know, building on what Derek said, I mean, really here, you know, legislation requires the view of the Charter, so that might happen, or a legislative body convenes the Charter or citizens trigger a Charter review process through initiative.

The forms that it can take is, you know, citizens can do this, you know, on their own, a mayor can select or a council can select commissioners or some type of democracy innovation like a citizens assembly can be used. And then the ratification process really is just like the commissioners propose changes, go directly to referendum, the Commission submits its proposals to a local council, and then that might have to go to a referendum or the Commission submits proposals to a local council, and that has to be supported through some form of special act that goes to the state legislature. So there really is a variety of different ways that involve how it's convened, what it looks like and how it turns out.

Derek Okubo

Yeah, sometimes city councils, I put together some type of ordinance that then is for a Charter change that then goes to ballot, and then they approve it. I know that in Denver, that's what often happened when there was a Charter update, it would go through council, not through a Charter Commission. So yeah, there's a variety, entirely correct, there's a variety of ways in which this can happen.

Peter

I want to tell you my understanding of what's happening in Hudson, and then get you guys to sort of just respond and help me understand how it fits into the way that it's done. But before I want to return to Derek something you talked about before about Charter reform or the question of why. I guess maybe that's sort of the first question: why, you know, people, why do communities do this?

What is it really about? Because it's such a way, I mean, you know, for people that aren't paying attention, there's a whole bunch of new language that doesn't really make a lot of sense. So why do municipalities engage in this kind of reform?

Derek Okubo: Yeah, you know, and one of the things I remember back when I was with the Civic League before in my first go round, our president at that time say, well, you know, structure, it doesn't matter what structure you have, if the leadership is really not being effective in running, you know, the government. So that's why, you know, that first question would always come up. Now, what is the issue, you know, as far as, is it the structure or is it the leadership or, you know, what is the issue?

And so with the structure, it's just the way in which things are done. And I think that's what the Model City Charters focus and purpose is to help that clarity be in place so that people know what each other's roles are doing and how things should work at its optimal level in order to be effective. And you could have a council manager, a great structure and very poor leadership and it still won't work.

Nick Vlahos: I mean, Derek is right that it might very well be that it's an issue or there's conflict or something happening in the community that requires revising it. It just might also be that it's within the charter itself that it has to be revisited every five to 10 years or whatever it is. So there's a few different reasons for why it might happen.

So in Hudson, a group of residents have made charter revisions and in New York, it happens that, you know, you need some percentage of the number of voters from the last gubernatorial campaign. You need that number of signatures to present it to the council. If the council doesn't act on it, you need an additional percentage of new signatures to then put it on the ballot or referendum. And that's what's happened in Hudson.

There are these charter revisions that will be on the ballot in November through that process. There was no formal sort of commission at all, but they're, you know, they're doing public input. They're starting a public input process, but they're starting to have their convenings around the revisions. I mean, all the signatures have been signed and the changes that they're proposing are from a mayor to city manager, reducing the number of council members from 11 to five and changing term limits. And there might be one other one, but I think those are the fundamental changes that they're making.

And it’s sort of an inherently divisive move to go this way. And so we're all kind of trying to, we're all trying to figure out how to go about it. So I'm just going to stop talking now and just see what you make of that effort and what I've described and how does it fit into the way that this is done. It's also, I was really tuned into the idea that the National Civic League came out of rabble rousers, you know what I mean? And there's a piece of this, these guys feel like they're kind of being rabble rousers, so there's something about what they're doing that's very much in the spirit of reform and the National Civic League, which I honestly, it wasn't my experience of what they're doing, but I'm just curious to hear you react to what I've described.

Derek Okubo: Yeah, it's, are currently the 11 council members, is that all at large?

No, it's five wards, so two per ward. And the population has shifted, so there's an argument that we just don't need that many.

Derek Okubo Yeah, well, and I can't, I'm struggling a little bit Peter, because I don't really know Hudson. Peter

Yeah, I don't mean to put you on the spot at all. No, I didn't mean to do that at all. It just was, you know, an opportunity to sort of tell this story in front of people who do this for a living, which seemed worthwhile.

Nick Vlahos: I mean, I guess the way that I would think about this first, I mean, just to back to your point, Peter, that there is this long history of, like you said, rabble rousers, but I'll put it as, there's a long history of recall initiative and referendum in the United States. And, you know, at least from a normative or theoretical point of view, this is direct democracy, you actually get an opportunity to influence the outcome directly through a public vote.

I think, in principle, I'm a strong supporter of that. In practice, there's a lot more nuance around just simply throwing out a referenda. There are the campaign and lobby efforts and the amount of money that's put into these and whether or not there's fairness in the way that the campaigns happen, that way that the questions are politically loaded. Whether or not there was any form of public consultation and input into this process, whether or not.

And there's a few other things that are slipping my mind, but all to say that there are better, there are good ways to run a referenda and there are bad ways and unsuccessful ways to do that. And so we might want, and while I can't touch on the specifics here, we might want to think about whether or not the community has had the opportunity and the buy in and the say in such a process. Because this might not go the way of the people that they want as well.

You know what I mean? And so this comes back to this efficiency of a public engagement process where we might just do something, rubber stamp it and expect the public to be all for it and then have to redo that process again and waste a lot of resources and time in order to do it right the first time. And so that's really what I would have to say is it's fascinating to me and I had never learned about such a situation where the citizens can directly go to a vote.

Like, I mean, just theoretically, just fascinates me that you can actually just get enough signatures to initiate a charter review process. But I mean, my inclination from a participatory democracy point of view is we want to expand the voices in the charter review process and we want to expand how people can participate within a charter, you know, naturally within a charter as well and what ends up on it.

Derek Okubo: If there is, if the topic is highly divisive in Hudson, it tells me that there's a few dynamics going on. One is how fully do people understand what's behind the proposed change. And like Nick said, how much buy-in is there? Obviously, that's really... There's not a lot of buy-in. And the way in which to address those dynamics, of course, is by kind of going slow to go fast, you know, it's convening the folks together from different perspectives.

Getting the input through the course of defining what the situation is, what the ideal situation would be, what the solutions would be. By having everybody together and going through that process together, I think that's where you develop the understanding, the clarity as far as what this is about. And then also, as far as creating the buy-in, as far as whether to support or not support. I think that by having that type of process earlier, it would probably be in a little bit different place had there been that type of convening early in the community.

I love what you said about going slow to go fast. You've captured a sort of tension or a paradox or some kind of contradiction. I feel like I encounter when I talk to people and connect with really the need for action and the fatigue with process. The idea of convening feels inactive and it feels like the exact opposite of what you really want to do. Do you have any wisdom on making that phrase alone and stealing? How do you make the case for convening when there's such an urgency?

Derek Okubo: Yeah, and I would say that, well, first of all, when we have that sense of urgency, the urge is to go fast. And we end up going slow in the long run because it gets messed up or it doesn't go at all. It started all over again. And so that's what we mean by even if there is that sense of urgency, it's still taking the time necessary. Otherwise, it's going to be for not oftentimes, but especially in a situation like this.

So when you're talking about the structure of your government, I mean, you need to take the time necessary to put the thought into it and get the different perspectives together to do it. I mean, it's not something that is going to change overnight anyway. I mean, you might as well take the time necessary to do it right from the beginning is my own perspective.

Yeah, that's wonderful. I had done some convenings a few years ago and was very fortunate that a neighbor in Hudson was friends with James Howard Kunstler. And he came and gave a talk and he had written Geography of Nowhere. And I asked him a question because I'm new to all this. I was like, what do you mean? Like, what is civic design? Like, what does that mean to you? And his answer, I keep with me because he said, it's the relationships between all the buildings. And I've always really loved that answer. And so I guess my next question is sort of about I think you guys were featured in the Time Magazine article about Jimmy Carter's brand of populism being sort of civic populism. And I just wanted to maybe give you guys a chance to talk about that work and maybe that idea of civic populism as being a kind of form of populism that maybe we're not aware of or how it's different from how we usually think about populism.

Derek Okubo: Nick, I'll let you—this is your area where you excel.

Nick Vlahos: Yeah, I mean, the article, it was an excellent article. I mean, Harry Boyd, I believe, wrote that and co-authored, you know, really, you know, has really captured over time the sort of spaces of social capital and the different sets of community networks and the people within communities. And I think we get sort of wound up within a specific narrative in effect of polarization, you know, the political right versus the political left or the center and whatnot. Where if we start to look at the actual history of the way that civic engagement, the fight for civil rights, suffrage, everything like of the sort is and the way that it fought against the status quo and entrenched power. There really is a different dynamic that comes from the reform era. And, you know, there's some interesting work that charts that across, you know, Western democracies.

And so it does, you know, think, you know, allows us to sort of maybe reclaim the narrative back and rethink about what that means and what positive forms of populism are because there are and, you know, the roots of it, the Vox Populi, that there is a potential there to achieve something that's a little bit more positive, but we just need to think a little bit more about what to what end is this directed towards. And how, you know, what are the root causes that are causing this sort of disaffection, institutional, economic, familial, whatever it is, and think about the different ways, you know, we as a community, as people can come together.

We've got maybe just under 10 minutes left and I think I wanted to return. Well, I want to get into Citizens Assembly, you know, I just, I first encountered it through the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College and just fell in love with the idea and its possibilities. And I have a proposal with healthy democracy for the city to do charter reform through it, but it's not, you know, sort of haven't gotten it on the ballot. And it's, but it's floating around and I'm making a case for it in Hudson. And I guess I wanted to position it in this conversation of this charter revision group has there, it's sort of a form of direct democracy. Citizens Assembly is this, you've used the word participatory, Citizens Assembly is deliberative.

Nick Vlahos: I mean, these are somewhat analytic distinctions, but I mean, they do, they do play out in practice, you know, the ability to aggregate a vote and directly influence the outcome is more of a direct form. Participatory tends to be more on a broad mass scale, and then more deliberative tends to be, you know, just by nature because it is going slow to go fast, you, it's more smaller group. I mean, so at the end of the day, a more deliberative democracy is one that is about reason giving and sharing and learning about subjects so that you can produce, you know, measured outcomes for some sort of end.

And so the purpose of having something like, I mean, I see a world where all of these overlap multi level channels of engagement that are direct participatory mass deliberative small groups. What are the different ways that we can civic design and integrate these so that the pros and cons of each can actually benefit the people as a whole. And so Citizens Assembly isn't one interesting model now to utilize because it is meant to take a measured approach to thinking about something as important as a charter review.

Right. And so this is an opportunity for us to think about the design of how do we select the participants, rather than, for example, using mayor selection and partisan appointment, random civic lottery or sort of Titian stratify that based on demographic groups, gender identity, etc. Think about the different phases of public engagement into this process and how

you make recommendations coming back to the community with your full proposals, then going to a referendum.

You know, and then another one is the citizen initiative review that happens in Oregon, you know, where the fascinating thing is that they create a citizen statement about this so that they can say, hey, we've weighed the pros and cons. Here's the statement for the referenda so that you can show that we're behind this, you know, so I just think that we, we want to, we, we want to include people and more people and not just have the usual suspects. We want broad demographics within the community to participate.

We want to offer digital ways of participating. And then a citizens’ assembly is another one, not all communities are going to use a citizens assembly. I do think that we should have them. That's part of the article that I'm proposing, but in those instances, they don't. How do we augment the way that they participate through some form of civic engagement scorecard that we offer or a, a, you know, online digital platform to propose and generate ideas. How do we help to outreach the communities to community campaigns and things like this is I think a better way to think of it and not just as this that or the other but like how do we make these work together in unison.

Derek Okubo: Yeah, and just to build off of what Nick said, I mean, our goal is to create a safe space for hard discussions on tough issues, you know, and by convening these different views and perspectives together in the safe space with good information. And deliberate talking about the issue. I mean, talking about what our ideal outcome would be talking about the defining getting a shared definition of what the issue is. And then coming up with the strategies to address it. I mean, that's in having the space in which to do that. I think that's what we're talking about here. And Nick is entirely right, trying to find ways to integrate these different pieces together.

Nick Vlahos: And, and I want to take this a step further, you know, not just simply the process, how do we make a better process, what do we put in through an actual charter, you know, so we have article seven, you know, it's, and I think it's interesting because you know it. I think it's the first time in our history where we've actually included something like this, but I'll just note that, I mean, basically it states in the charter, the city shall treat public engagement as integral to governance to include multi-channels in person in digital ways. Institutional structures will support and coordinate engagement, such as council committees, departments, commissions and advisory boards.

So we also want to think about the end game of, you know, getting to a process where we have a better civic infrastructure, where those relationships between the buildings are more fully spelled out, and they're included in the foundation of our sort of civic design. And there's a lot of interesting ways that we might want to do that renovating existing infrastructure creating new parallel institutions, whatever it is, the specificity of that is going to be community specific but process and outcome. How do we, how do we make it more civically minded.

That's amazing. I love what you just said and that is that you are pointing at what's in the model city charter that it actually sort of embeds more robust forms of civic engagement as an obligation at a broad level.

Nick Vlahos: Right. I mean, you know, I think it's absolutely necessary and vital to have at least some level of a broad statement in there to guide cities that are doing this brand, you know, and they should consider that. But you can take this to another level and actually be specific and maybe that broadness is too esoteric. We need to specify things so in Cambridge, their charter commission proposed having regularly curling citizens assemblies. I mean, we can think about the gamut of ways to make civic engagement a lot better and think about how the community might embed that within their charter. And you know the limit there really, but then of course you know it has to pass a referendum and get through all the different layers of political governance that you have to think about. But you know there's there's in, you know, there really is space to think creatively.

I find that stuff so exciting.

Derek Okubo: That one article on public engagement is going to be exciting to watch because I think that's going to really evolve over the years.

Well, this is what I think came out, what has drawn me to this, just to begin with this experience of living in a small town and seeing what feels like, you know, the biggest problem is that we just don't even have a shared understanding. We're not even in the same conversation at all, really. And if there's no mechanisms in place for us to get to a shared understanding. But it's also the case that nobody's really paying attention to creating that civic infrastructure, basically, right? I mean, is that what we're talking about? Is this a new idea? Is this a new need that we have?

Derek Okubo: No, I think it's just a key thing is having leadership across different sectors, you know, as far as whether it's the business and government and nonprofit and community. I mean, as far as just knowing that a certain group alone won't have the answers, we have to come together. We might know the questions, but to create the answers, we need to bring everybody together. And I think that having the leadership who understands the art of convening is so crucial to the health of any community's civic infrastructure.

Thank you so much. I really am so appreciative of your time and your expertise. I really just thank you so much for sharing all your time and your wisdom with us.

Nick Vlahos: Thank you, Peter.

Derek Okubo: My pleasure. Yeah, absolutely.

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