Re: RAB Guidelines

[meuser@cats.ucsc.edu]

I think Lenny hit the nail squarely on the head. Community participation
does seem to vary from installation to installation. I'm a bit
confused though. Why does the shift in language from RAB members
being representatives of community, environmental, etc. groups to
RAB members representing themselves, as Lenny outlined in a post a few
weeks ago, represent a way to cut the bureacracy as Paul Yarschak says?
I don't think that RAB members being representatives of groups necessarily
means that a concensus model must be used. Does it, or am I missing
something?

Paul also says that the guidelines are not cast in stone. Recently
I was at the Ft Ord's RAB Procedures committee meeting. This was
a meeting between the RAB and the Army to see if they could come to
an agreement on the 5th draft and revision of the RAB by-laws. The
Army representative passed out photocopies of sections of the
DoD guidelines to indicate why the Army could not agree with the
present draft as written. He would allow NO deviation from them.
It seems that the interpretation of the guidelines varies from
installation to installation.

Paul, I don't assume ulterior motives. I asked a question. I admit
that I have only been looking at this process and reading the documents
for only a few months. There is still much that I do not understand.
For instance, in my estimation Keystone and FFERC offer a model that
allows the community much more power and latitude than the present
DOD/EPA guidelines. Why is this? I don't know the answer yet.

Anyway, my main interest is to look at the way community participation
is documented at the top and see how it plays out on the ground, at the
base level, and try to explain the differences. Any help in this
endeavor will be greatly appreciated.

Mike 

Michael R. Meuser
Sociology Board
Stevenson College
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Phone: 408-458-4245
FAX: 408-458-4245
meuser@cats.ucsc.edu
FAX: 408-458-4245