Congratulations 2020 IAP2 USA Core Values Awards Winners: The Embodiment of Meaningful Public Participation

IAP2 USA Core Values Award for General Project

The City of Flagstaff, AZ and the Southside Community Association won the 2020 IAP2 USA Core Values Award in General Project and Project of the Year categories for their project, Embracing Our Heritage; Enhancing Our Future: The Southside Community Specific Plan.

Their project embodied the Southside, a culturally diverse and historic neighborhood in central Flagstaff that has been experiencing renewed development pressure. The City and community association built a process that leveraged partnerships and storytelling to address difficult historic topics, while helping the community look forward. Staff and volunteers focused on creating numerous meaningful small opportunities, many of them “on-the-street," to gain insight and understanding into the community’s view of history and the City government. The suite of creative public participation methods and continual re-evaluation and adjustment of the process has rebuilt community trust and relationships. 

The judges also selected this entry to submit to compete against other IAP2 affiliate winners in the International Core Values Award Project of the Year to be announced later this year in Australia.

Congratulations Sara Dechter, AICP, CP3, Comprehensive Planning Manager, City of Flagstaff and Deborah Ann Harris, M.Ed. President, Southside Community Center

IAP2 USA Diversity, Inclusion and Culture Core Values Award

The project, Reconnecting past and future: Community engagement shapes redevelopment in Portland's Historic Old Town Chinatown was initiated by Prosper Portland, the City of Portland’s development bureau. 

In a beleaguered downtown neighborhood with a distinct cultural history, Prosper Portland, needed to plan redevelopment of two key sites in the historic Old Town Chinatown. This area is known as the historic settling place for Portland’s Chinese and Japanese immigrants, along with other communities of color. More recently, many historic residents have been displaced and the neighborhood has become a place of many challenges, including issues around houselessness and public safety.  

An action plan adopted for the neighborhood emphasized that cultural and educational institutions must play an important role in community development and public conversations. 

Congratulations Adrienne DeDona, Senior Program Manager, JLA Public Involvement, Eric Jacobson, Project Manager for Block 25, Prosper Portland and Bernie Kerosky, Project Manager for NW 4th and Burnside, Prosper Portland

Honorable Mention

Honorable mention was awarded to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in the Diversity, Inclusion and Culture Project of the Year Category for their project entitled Arizona Assumption of the Clean Water Act Section 404 Dredge and Fill Program. Congratulations Erin Jordan, Ph.D., ADEQ Surface Water Quality Improvement Value Stream Manager

The IAP2 Core Values Awards are presented each year to projects that best exemplify IAP2’s guiding principles. Founded in 1992, the International Association for Public Participation advocates for and supports the practice of Public Participation, which is based on the premise that people affected by a decision have a right and expectation to have their opinion, position and interests heard and considered. IAP2 USA now has nearly 2,300 members.

Visit the website for more details and information about how your project can be considered for a 2021 Core Values Award.