Date: April 25, 2000

To: Scott Bernstein

Peter Katz

Jeff Winston

Summer Rutherford

Michael Kwartler

Ken Snyder

Susan Boyd

Kendra Briechle

Bill Miller

Tom Gunther

Mark Wolcott

John Cleveland

From: John Lambie

Re: Next Steps on the Association for Better Citizen Decision-Making

I am writing to propose a course of action on the next steps for the proposed ABCD organization.

Attached is a summary John Cleveland did of our planning meeting at the TCDDM III conference in Florida. We agreed to a number of short term planning steps.

Because of the demanding schedules of many of those involved, no concrete next steps have yet been taken.

As you all know, the Florida House Institute has a long-term commitment to the development of a comprehensive set of tools for sustainable development planning. In order to move our shared agenda forward, I am offering my time and the Florida House Institute resources to take the following steps:

    1. Web site development. FHI will develop a web site (hosted by FICUS – the Florida Internet Center for Understanding Sustainability) to organize our accrued knowledge about citizen planning tools. Ken Snyder is working with us to integrate the current web site materials on TCDDM (www.ncat.org/comtool) into this site. We will integrate this material with FHI tools on the sustainable development planning for a more comprehensive approach.
    2. Business plan development. I will organize a conference call within the next three weeks to get your input on the business plan design for ABCD, based on our notes from the TCDDM III conference. Using your input, FHI will draft a proposed business plan for ABCD.
    3. Legal structure. We agreed that ABCD should be an independent, 501 c3 organization. In the short term, I am willing to use the Florida House Institute legal structure to organize the work of the Association.
    4. Governance. I would like you to consider constituting yourselves as the founding Board of Directors of ABCD. I will talk with each of you about your interest in this role.
    5. Resources. Once we are agreed upon a business plan and have a group willing to provide governance, I will help organize the process of soliciting funding to support our work.
    6. Fall/winter conference. I believe we should begin planning now for the next conference of tool developers and users. The next event could focus on some of the process tools available for greater citizen involvement and/or the concept of establishing Regional Resource Centers around the country equipped with decision support tools. Chicago has been suggested as a good location for this meeting I will solicit a planning team to begin this process.
    7. Name. Ken Snyder came up with an alternative name I believe we should consider: Association for Better Community Design and Decision Making. The acronym would be ABCD2. This name focuses us more directly in the work most of us are involved in.

I will seek to talk with as many of you as possible within the next few weeks, and also organize a short conference call to discuss next steps.

Thanks to all for your patience and interest.