2016 Skills Symposium - LOGISTICS

Welcome to the 2016 Skills Symposium!
Sunday, Feb. 21 – Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016
Bahia Resort Hotel, San Diego, California
We are excited to have you join us!

LOGISTICS

• All training sessions start at 8:30 AM. NOTE: We will not have coffee/tea or snacks in the room to start so please plan accordingly.
• Morning break will start at 10:00. This will include coffee/tea and muffins and will be available in the training rooms.
• Lunch is from noon to one. We will be having this together in a central location, a GREAT networking opportunity.
• Training sessions are expected to finish between 4:30 and 5:00. Times will vary by session. 
• Room Locations: Note, the Bahia Belle is the Mississippi riverboat; other rooms are in the hotel.
• ALL participants should go directly to their training session room. NO pre-registration required. 

ADDITIONAL EVENTS

On Monday evening from 5:30 to 7:00 we will be hosting our first ever BIG HAIRY PROBLEM event. We have partnered with California American Water to look at some of the issues and the challenges they face with their public participation processes – click here to learn more.

Registration is limited to 25, so PLEASE RSVP your intention to participate.

At the Tuesday lunch we will be hearing from Steve Boilard, Executive Director of the Center for California Studies. Steve will be talking about the California Consortium on Public Engagement. He is coming to provide a little bit of background about the Consortium, but he also wants to hear from us. Here are some of his questions:

• Who’s responsible for public participation? How much can the state do, versus local governments, versus non-profits, versus individual members of the public?
• Relatedly, how much of the solution to the participation puzzle lies in changing laws and regulations, versus changing culture and mores? If it’s the latter, how do we do this? Even if we remove barriers, how do we actually increase participation by underrepresented groups?
• Here in CA we make extensive use of citizen initiatives. Is this conducive to participation? Originally the initiative process was created as a way for citizens to circumvent the Legislature, which was captured by special interests. But do special interests now control the initiative process?
• What kind of efforts, if any, should be made to ensure that participation in the policymaking process is informed with a sufficient understanding of issues, etc.? In this presidential election season, we perhaps see evidence of people being mobilized by populist appeals and misinformation. Is there a need to address this?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THE HOTEL

• Transportation
• Local Dining
• Hotel Amenities
• Amusement Parks

Please don’t hesitate to contact Jennifer Armstrong at info@iap2usa.org. Amelia Shaw will be attending the event (taking courses) but will be pleased to help out if issues arise. She can be reached at ameliaiap2usa@gmail.com.

— Cancellation Policy —