Great project results require involvement from all
By DONNA SCHANTZ, Acting Executive Director
The citizens’ council is kicking off its long-range planning process. Sometimes, we’re asked how we select the projects we undertake and how we develop our annual budgets.
Someone even asked if we use a dartboard, or if there is something more systematic at work?
The answer is, it’s all in our five-year long-range plan, which gives overall shape to the development of our much more detailed annual work plans and budgets. We’ve been using this process since 2001.
The long-range plan is updated annually. As part of that process, we seek new project ideas from our staff, board and committee volunteers, and from stakeholders in the oil industry and regulatory agencies.
There are various ways that we strive to achieve our mission of promoting environmentally safe operation of the Alyeska’s Valdez Marine Terminal and the oil tankers that load North Slope crude there.
One way is to foster partnerships and joint projects with industry, government agencies and citizens. We have learned that such partnerships lead to good policies, better response capabilities, safer oil transportation, and improved environmental protection.
Ideas for new projects need to be submitted with a brief statement or description touching on the following five criteria: 1) relevance to the council mission; 2) value to the council; 3) benefit to the council’s constituents; 4) probability of success; and 5) anticipated cost.
Each year a handful of board members volunteer to serve on the strategic planning coordination committee tasked with updating the five-year plan.
These board members work with the council staff and our five technical committee chairs to fine-tune the planning process and assemble the input received.
Once all of the proposed projects are placed in the five-year framework, they are provided to our staff and full board of directors for ranking. Each ranker assigns points to his or her highest-priority projects based on the five criteria listed above. The points are averaged, and the scores are summarized in a ranking table.
This ranking table is instrumental in the development of our annual work plans and budgets, as the highest-ranked projects get the highest priority.
If you have a project idea for us, we’d love to hear about it; instructions for submitting them appear below.
Besides meeting the five criteria listed above, project ideas should relate to our mission. That mission includes, but is not limited to: monitoring the environmental impacts of the terminal facilities and the tankers that use it; reviewing oil spill prevention and response contingency plans for the terminal and the tankers; monitoring drills and exercises; studying wind, currents, and other environmental factors; reviewing new technological developments and changes in other factors critical to oil transportation safety; providing advice and recommendations to industry and regulators on findings growing out of our work; and broadly representing our constituents in the region affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.
To submit a project idea, send them to me at: schantz@pwsrcac.org. The deadline for this year’s planning effort is October 2, 2009, but we will accept new project ideas at any time for consideration and inclusion in the next planning cycle.