With over 45 years of experience in advocacy, MVCC has learned a thing or two about some of the essential elements of being an effective advocate. If you’re eager to become more engaged in the processes that will influence how the Methow Valley will look in the future, here are some tips to get you started:

Learn and Understand some of the Rules and Processes
While marching in a climate march or showing up to a boisterous meeting is important, the bedrock of advocacy–learning about the bureaucratic and hard-to-sift-through processes that govern decision making at County, State and Federal levels–is far less invigorating. If you don’t have any background here, it might be best to start with one entity—say the County—and learn about the process of decision-making and rule-making.  Who makes the decisions? (County Commissioners) How are they voted on? (county-wide elections) What documents inform many of the county level rules we follow ? (Comp Plan, Critical Areas Ordinance, Zoning) Where are there opportunities to have input into these rules? (Public comment periods, sub-area planning committees)

MVCC will be developing a more comprehensive Citizen’s Guide to Advocacy later this year that answers many of the questions you might have about different agencies. However, we encourage you to do a bit of digging yourself too. If you get stuck, we’re a phone call away.

Monitor Legal Ads
Speaking of digging…when’s the last time you spent some time perusing the legal ads of the Methow Valley News? We know it probably falls alongside the classifieds as the least read section of the paper, but these seemingly mundane ads are where we are routinely tipped off to emerging issues that might pass us by. Remember the closure of French Creek Road to public access? Legal Ads! The interest of Crown Columbia in Methow River water? Legal Ads!

It is good practice to peruse these ads on a regular basis. Not only might you see something that piques your interest—a nearby new development going in, a critical area possibly being disturbed—but the more eyes we have out there looking, the more likely we are to catch things and have the collective power to influence the decision.

Choose a Local Issue You’re Passionate About
As you begin to plug in to being an advocate and an active citizen you quickly realize: there are a lot of different issues to track here! Land use/development, water use, public lands, Climate Action Plan projects, clean air, wildlife—enough to keep your head spinning! Instead of trying to stay informed about all these issues at once (we’ll still keep you up to speed on all of them, don’t worry), we recommend choosing one or two you are passionate about and staying up to date on them. Track them through local organizations, read news articles on them and look in the legal ads for developments or upcoming comment periods. Being well-informed about a few issues will especially help when it comes time to comment.

Prepare an Informed Comment that is Written in your Own Words
Public comment periods are an essential part of the public decision-making process that our County, State and Federal decision-makers rely on. As comment periods emerge, MVCC often analyzes significant policy documents and comes up with a list of what we like and what we’d like to see improved. As you’re crafting your own letter, we recommend that you put these talking points in the context of your own experiences and thoughts on the issue. While it isn’t illegal copyright to copy and paste what we say (form letters do it all the time), we encourage you to put it in your words (as you were always supposed to do writing those high school English papers). If you have a question about a technical part of the report, the agencies will usually be able to answer your question, or we can help to clarify.  As you put your comment in the context of your experiences, don’t forget to include concrete, actionable elements you like or would like to see improved and why they are important. Ideological rants about your thoughts and feelings about rapid development or misguided forest policy tend to be discarded quickly.

As the decision-makers note in their comments below, agencies can tell when a letter is pasted from a form. While a large quantity of one opinion shows some consensus, it isn’t the same as a vote. All those similar opinions will be summarized together.

What if I don’t have time to craft a long letter?
Brevity is always appreciated by decision-makers. Remember, sometimes these folks have to read hundreds or even thousands of letters! Focus in on what affects you and what you are the most informed about. What are a few things you like and why? What are a few things you’d like to improve and why?

Be Aware of Tone
The public employees reading your letter don’t craft the policy in front of you exactly how they wished it to be. They must operate within the confines of their agency. They also must consider feedback from everyone. As noted by decision-makers below, a personal attack or accusatory tone is counterproductive. Thank these public employees for the work they do and comment about what you appreciate. Where you do ask for improvements, try to offer solutions (or proposed solutions) or ask them what a potential solution might be in an open question.