Process Questions

Based on discussion groups held in February and March with Montrose residents who described the nature of the childcare problem as they envisioned it, Unify America created a first draft of the goal statement. Over about ten weeks, the statement was word-smithed, getting tweaked many times over, based on conversations with about 75 different residents of Montrose, including leaders in childcare, government officials, parents, and other residents. At a meeting at Community Options on June 14, 2023, the Solutions Team (leaders in childcare, youth services, and education in Montrose) approved the final wording of the statement.

The target demographic areas taken into account when the Assembly was selected in the Deliberation Lottery on August 2, 2023, were: income, gender, city/county, race/ethnicity, age, and political party registration. The reason for using Political Party Registration instead of “Presidential Candidate Voted for in 2020” is threefold:

First: if the application to be a Delegate had included a question about a personal vote for President in 2020, potential Delegates may have been less likely to complete the survey.. Voting is done in private, and many Americans (though not all) like to keep it that way. In contrast, registration is on file with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, and numbers are updated each month.

Second: Even if that question had appeared on the application and people had answered it, there was no way to verify what they submitted. With all other demographic information we asked for, including political party registration (or lack thereof) there are public sources we could have used, if needed, to confirm the truth of what one submitted on the application.

Third: The decision to register for a political party or register unaffiliated is a meaningful indicator of personal perspective, one that is broader than the limited perspective gained from how one answered a single multiple-choice question on a single office during the election of 2020 (with some voters disliking any of the choices).

No. If none of the Actions, some of the Actions, or all of the Actions receive 2/3rds approval, the actual vote count and percentages (along with Delegate comments) will be reported to the community. It is then up to residents of Montrose and leaders what to do with the results.

The two-thirds threshold was a percentage selected by Unify America as part of this pilot, based on deliberation design principles that sees consensus-building as needing more than a simple majority. The mission of Unify America is to move away from politics as a means of solving problems, where often two teams battle each other, and decisions are frequently made on party lines. Deliberation aims for people to think for themselves, using reason and their common sense, listening to each other carefully with an open mind. The hypothesis is that this can lead to greater degrees of consensus than is possible in a split-down-the-middle political environment. Getting two-thirds support on any public action in politics is rarely achieved. That is why we set the threshold that high.

If there are two actions that are mutually exclusive, if you proceed with one it necessarily eliminates the other. Actions 7 and 8 are mutually exclusive. After Delegate Improvements, Action 7 calls for yurts both at the current site of the ECE Center AND at elementary schools. Action 8 calls for yurts ONLY at elementary schools. Obviously, you can’t do both.

That said, there was delegate confusion over mutually exclusive actions reported after Meetup #10, and so there will be no consideration of mutually exclusive actions in the tabulation of votes. This means that any Action that receives ⅔ support or more of the voting delegates will be recommended in a Plan of Action.

But this is okay, and here’s why:

If Delegates are, for example, supportive of both Actions 7 & 8 (i.e. both get more than 2/3rds support) that is still good information for the school district (who will ultimately be responsible for the final decision and implementing it). This underscores the importance of delegate comments along with the votes; knowing WHY delegates voted for or against an action is valuable information for leaders in a next stage toward implementation.

For other Actions focused on similar problems, like Actions 1 & 2 (Camp Montrose and Kids Program Connector), if Delegates recommended both of those Actions, that might communicate that there is a desire to provide after school activities at some of the schools AND ALSO provide transportation to students to after school program locations. Again, the comments delegates provide with their votes will be good information for community leaders involved in a next stage toward implementation.

Unify will announce the results to Delegates and Solutions Team members in mid-December. We will then compile a comprehensive report for the community on every aspect of the Deliberation, making available all materials utilized, voting records and results, survey records and results, all improvements, commentary and questions from Delegates and a summary of the many lessons learned. Of course, it will also highlight the Ideas for Actions, if any, that the Assembly converges on by a 2/3rds vote. With Delegates who wish to volunteer, we will present the report to the community in a public meeting at the end of January..

Meanwhile, Delegates and other community members have been coming to Catalyst Club events. The Club will be led entirely by Montrose residents. Unify America looks forward to observing and supporting the Catalyst Club from the sidelines.

From Week 9 to Week 11, Delegates are getting mixed into temporary trusts with a range of demographics in each. Just like the Assembly as a whole has delegates with a wide range of demographic backgrounds, including political party registration. The Trusts, ideally, are a subset of the overall demographic mix. Delegates will return to their original Trust for Week 12.

We are mixing Trusts to encourage greater exchange of viewpoints and ideas across the Delegates. There’s value for Delegates to be exposed to many different perspectives. Taking into account many different perspectives is a foundation of collective wisdom.

Because it is difficult to hold a meaningful deliberation with dozens of Delegates all in the same space. We created those small groups, which are known as Trusts, to allow Delegates to get to know one another, with the hope that this would lead them to trust one another, so they could be honest with each other.

This was a lesson learned for us. The leaders at Unify have a background in teaching through media and have had a lot of success using entertainment to engage people when covering new concepts. For example, our founder and creative director worked together to build a product that now helps millions of Americans learn about and pick out their medical insurance...using entertainment to engage and teach. We assumed that we needed to use entertainment to successfully communicate ideas to Delegates in a way that the information would stick.

Maybe that was unnecessary. We need to survey more Delegates to know for sure.

We recognize that it led some Delegates to think we were trying to persuade them on the merits of an action, rather than just describe the action in a clear and memorable way, as was our intention. The section at the end of each video, with the couple identifying the benefits and tradeoffs of each action was meant to model deliberation and also communicate that while each action had strong points, each also had weak points.

You might have noticed that after Meetup #8, the lowdown materials have become much more cut and dry; we are trying to respond to the concern underlying your question.

But your question is really asking about bias. We have no bias as to what Actions the Assembly chooses (or does not choose) to pursue. That’s up to the Assembly.

The Initial 8 Actions were culled from 62 ideas collected over the spring and the summer, from Montrose residents and research on childcare solutions in other communities. The group that did the culling, the Solutions Team, were about 18 Montrose residents - all in leadership positions in childcare, education, youth services and business. Unify helped facilitate that process to make sure the 8 Initial Actions provided meaningfully different options to Delegates in the different areas of childcare. We came into town to run a process to help Montrose residents (including leaders) identify Montrose solutions to a Montrose problem.

Delegates can vote against all of the eight Actions presented if they choose. They will not be asked to prioritize them. As answered in previous Delegate questions, “the eight Actions are going to change with your feedback and then less popular ideas will go away. There will be voting and the ideas that didn't get enough votes will go away. That is a part of your work, getting rid of actions that collectively you don't like. At that point, the costs can be estimated. The estimated budgets really need to reflect only the actions you like with your changes factored in.” To directly address your comment: if it is unacceptable for you to show support for any Action without understanding the full implementation details, then you can vote against it.

The Assembly is working to determine if there are specific ideas that Montrose should pursue. There are, in fact, details that can only be worked out during implementation based on the feedback from the Delegates. For example, for Action 2, the Kids Program Connector, the Assembly does not have time to deliberate over whether the vehicle used to pick up students from Cottonwood Elementary should be a van from Community Options or a bus rented from the school bus company.

There will be budgets for each Action that have general assumptions on what is required. But the budgets will not become law. They are only meant to give Delegates an idea of the investment required for the Action. And in turn, Delegates determine whether an investment of that general magnitude is worth it.

If there is a Plan of Action, Delegates can participate in the Implementation process and help refine these budgets as implementation details are figured out.

Delegates are broken up into smaller groups for discussion because an open forum with dozens of people would not yield deep conversation. Each of the smaller groups, however, has a range of different demographics to hopefully have different perspectives.

This Delegate FAQ page also acts as a space to air your general comments, questions, and concerns. Please continue to submit them so they can be responded to publicly here.

They came from:

• individual residents in Montrose.

• experts in Montrose, in childcare youth services and education

• research on what other communities around the country are doing.

Yes! We had to prepare the document for your review. On this list, you'll find a bunch of interesting ideas. But we needed to get to eight actions that Delegates had the time to deliberate. The Solutions Team considered the remaining ideas deferred for consideration during an implementation phase, or otherwise in the future. Here is the link to the Action Ideas document.

A group of local experts called the Solutions Team. That included the heads of:

• Montrose Recreation District

• Boys and Girls Club

• Community Options

• Montrose County School District

• Bright Futures, the regional Early Childcare Council

• Maslow Academy

as well as some local business leaders.

• They are the current providers of care and youth services in Montrose.

• They live in the trenches of childcare in Montrose and understand the challenges.

• This effort would have little hope of ultimately being impactful if these leaders were not involved.

The vast majority of citizen deliberations include and present information from experts with different perspectives to delegates. This is a widespread standard of the citizen assembly process across the world.

Why? Because research shows that there is great wisdom among nonexperts who are well informed through a structured deliberative process.

So for the purposes of this deliberation, think of the Solutions Team as expert consultants for you, the Assembly.

You, the delegates, are the decision makers.

Great. You don't have to like them.

Please continue to give your honest reactions and ideas for change or improvements if you think there are any improvements that can be made. If, after deliberating with your trust, you just think an action is a terrible idea, no problem. If it's a good idea, great. You are here as representatives of Montrose to judge these ideas, update them and or change them, and do so with the benefit of hearing the differing perspectives of other delegates in your trust.

Yes, absolutely.

The actions presented are jumping off points. The idea is to give you a sense of what could happen for different age group children, with volunteers, with parents, friends and neighbors, et cetera. Then you will generate ideas. Some may be variations on the actions you've seen on the lowdowns, some may be entirely new. This will happen at the end of the action deliberation process.

These actions are going to change with your feedback and then less popular ideas will go away. There will be voting and the ideas that didn't get enough votes will go away. That is a part of your work, getting rid of actions that collectively you don't like. At that point, the costs can be estimated. The estimated budgets really need to reflect only the actions you like with your changes factored in.

No, they sure don't.

Yes, they are all committed to serving parents and families. But these action ideas were not without tension when discussed on the Solutions Team. There were strong opinions, positive and negative. Because of their jobs, they are very aware of the problem, but they don't necessarily agree on how to address it.

This is where you, the delegates, come in.

You are a random representative group of Montrose residents who are talking through these ideas with other residents from Montrose who are different from you, and in most cases, residents you haven't met before this deliberation. If you are honest with each other and listen to each other with open minds, collective wisdom will be the result.

Determining the sources of funding for a Plan of Action can only come after the Assembly determines what actions should be included in the Plan. Once the Delegates have considered Actions, suggested changes, and voted on changes that they want to make, then budgets can be established and shared with Delegates.

But first, you, the Delegates need to get clear on what we’re doing first. Then - and this is toward the end of the deliberation - once you know the numbers, you’ll deliberate on which actions are worth the investment, and how much investment… if any.

Funding would, it is assumed, include support for a grant writer so that foundation grants could be part of any funding plan. Access to state and federal funding, such as Colorado’s Universal PreK funding, would also be tapped if available. Beyond that, actions -- and this applies to ANY public initiative -- can be funded through the reallocation of existing public spending, and/or through taxes or fees, and/or public-private partnerships.

When the original 64 Delegates were randomly selected during the lottery event in August, the breakdown was as follows:

• Unaffiliated: 41%

• Republican: 39%

• Democrat: 11%

• Third-Party: 2%

• Not registered to vote or unsure of registration: 8%

That randomly selected panel of 64 Delegates broadly represented the demographics of Montrose County based on data from the 2020 Census.

You can find more about the demographic makeup of the original Assembly here.

Since the initial Delegate selection, some participants were not able to make the time commitment work. So here’s the current political breakdown for the Delegates who are currently engaged in the process and able to join the Meetups:

• Unaffiliated: 39%

• Republican: 39%

• Democrat: 14%

• Third-Party: 4% Not registered or unsure of status

• Not registered to vote or unsure of registration: 4%

We'll update these numbers again (and share them publicly) at the end of the process to include all Delegates who actively and regularly participated in the Assembly.

To create collective wisdom, we need all delegates, not just younger delegates. For sure, the technology we are using has been a much bigger challenge than we had anticipated. As a pilot with a limited time scope, we chose existing technologies that were not as user-friendly as we first expected.

However, we are using the learnings (like the clumsiness of going back and forth between Zoom and our Lowdown platform), to establish the requirements for the technology we hope to build in the future. We know it's been hard on some of our delegates, and we're so appreciative of what we have learned from you.

Our founder Harry Nathan Gottlieb has started two technology companies and the software they build allows people with next to no experience with technology to participate easily. It is possible to build a video conference experience for deliberation that is simple for everyone.

However, given our goals, and the time and human resources we had for this pilot, we could not create our own custom platform in time for the Montrose deliberation.

But we have made adjustments to make participation in the Deliberation easier for everyone. We’ve created three pathways for Delegates to make sure the experience doesn’t exclude anyone:

1) Delegates can watch the Lowdown experiences on its own platform and navigate between Zoom and the Lowdown site.

2) Delegates can watch the Lowdowns in a small group on Zoom, or…

3) Delegates can get printed materials of the Lowdown, including a video transcript to reference if they're not able to access the platform.

Please let Molly, Alex, or Luis know your preferences.

We are also learning that the Lowdown platform does not work well on a tablet or mobile phone.

We do hope you will offer us your grace and patience as we work out the kinks. We are doing the best we can.

We also think it would be wonderful to run this entire deliberation in person. This project, however, is a pilot to see if it is possible to run a deliberation that can scale from dozens of delegates to hundreds to thousands. The idea is that as many people as possible should be brought into public decision-making. And we want to figure out how to do that — how, for example, citizens across the state of Colorado could be in Trusts together to work out state-wide issues. That can’t be done in person, it requires video conferencing. And that is why we are doing this pilot online. That said, after the wonderful meeting at the Ute Museum, we are more enthusiastic than ever about our Catalyst Club meetings, where handraisers (whether or not they were picked as Delegates) and other residents interested in the deliberation are getting together in person. We had our first Catalyst Club get-together last week at the Pomona Brewery (which was fun and interesting), and more are getting scheduled.

In the randomly selected, live lottery held August 2, 2023, out of the more than 200 handraisers, 64 Delegates were chosen for the Assembly. The Delegates are broadly representative of the demographics of Montrose. Additionally, 24 Delegates were chosen as Alternates, using a similar random, representative selection process. Both processes used a program called Panelot.

(What’s Panelot? Developed collaboratively by computer scientists at several universities, Panelot is the gold standard for deliberation lotteries, and it has been used by scores of people’s assemblies in the United States and around the world.)

In the weeks that followed the lottery, Unify staff connected with each Delegate, determining if they wanted to continue in the process. Alternates were then “called up” into the Assembly. Due to Delegates being unable to participate, all 24 Alternates were contacted and asked to participate as Delegates.

The result is that on the first day of the Assembly, August 27, the Unify Montrose deliberation project had 67 Delegates and Alternates, derived from the original group of 88 Delegates and Alternates. While the goal was to maintain a 64 delegate Assembly, we can no longer continue to “call up” Alternates into the process after Orientation. As of week 4, we have 58 Delegates engaged in the deliberation.

We understand that being a Delegate is a big commitment (it’s a 12-week process after all) and people have things come up in their lives. So, we know that we will finish with fewer Delegates than we started with. And we know this because, among the hundreds of People’s Assemblies that have been held over the last twenty years, this is common. As of week 4, we have 58 Delegates engaged in the deliberation.

Therefore, the Unify Montrose Assembly will continue to work to engage all delegates in the process, but some Trusts may be resorted or combined in future Meetups.

Additionally, there will be at least one Meetup when Delegates are mixed across Trusts to promote Delegates hearing from even more perspectives from across the Extended Trust.

Absolutely! We are now including a link to all text of the Lowdown each week as a downloadable PDF (you’ll see it at the very bottom of the Lowdown). If you’d like to have this emailed to you each week, please let us know by emailing montrose@unifyamerica.org and asking to be put on our PDF Lowdown list.

Absolutely! The process began when community leaders invited Unify America, a non-partisan, non-profit, to Montrose. After holding a number of community meetings and having conversations with community leaders and elected officials, Unify America began Unify Montrose, which is a partnership between residents in Montrose and Unify America to hold a deliberation about a local problem. The issue of childcare was selected with guidance from local leaders, partially because of the excellent work that had already been co-sponsored by the City of Montrose, Montrose County, Bright Futures, and the Uncompaghre Valley Alliance (see the 2021 Montrose County Childcare Needs Assessment full report here).

The deliberation process begins with a shared goal. Montrose residents, childcare and education experts, public officials, and business groups participated in the creation of a shared goal for childcare. The shared goal for this deliberation is “Every parent and guardian in Montrose shall have access to dependable, safe, affordable, and enriching childcare options so they can work, attend school, or otherwise contribute to the community.”

Meanwhile, dozens of ideas for solutions were collected from the folks above and other communities around the country. A Solutions Team of local childcare and business leaders convened and narrowed the list of ideas down to 8 actions.

Delegates were selected through a lottery process, creating a random, representative Assembly that reflects the demographics of Montrose.

The Delegates join together for 12 weeks of deliberation, which includes:

• Orientation, including an in person meet-up (3 weeks)

• Overview of the Status Quo of the childcare shortage

• Deliberation of 8 actions to achieve the shared goal (4 weeks)

• Action improvements, as suggested by delegates

• Action comparison and prioritization

• Funding Discussion

• Confirmation vote of the Plan of Action

If the delegates confirm the Plan of Action by a two-thirds majority, the plan becomes the Plan of the People and will be presented to the community in January 2024.

As a Delegate, you’ll join the weekly two-hour sessions, which include:

• Watching videos and reading materials

• Discussing the proposed plans to solve the childcare shortage with your group

• Taking short surveys to gauge your thoughts

You’ll also be asked to attend the Sept 6, 2023 from 5:30 to 7:30PM (with a 5:00PM check-in) in-person gathering and a community-wide presentation of results later this winter. (RSVP here)

If the Deliberation is successful, at the end of 12 weeks, the Assembly will have converged on a strategic plan for achieving our Shared Goal. The strategic plan includes a prioritized list of the actions supported by the Assembly, and to what extent the delegates, as representatives of Montrose, believe the plan should be funded. If the Proposed Plan of Action is confirmed by 2/3rds of the Delegates, it becomes the Plan of the People. Delegates will present the Plan of the People to elected officials, local leaders and Montrose residents in a public presentation in January.

Every Trust will have between 6-8 Delegates participating. However, sometimes a Delegate can't make it due to a personal emergency. We hope that you'll have a chance to meet others in your Trust at the Ute Museum on Wednesday, September 6 (remember to RSVP here).

The hope is that the Deliberation concludes successfully with a Plan of the People, and that the plan is improved and expanded upon by other individuals and organizations in the community during an implementation phase. For example, there are also businesses that would like to be part of helping solve the childcare shortage. The goal of the Assembly is to create momentum and direction for achieving the Shared Goal.

When you look at the initial Actions, you might have ideas for improvements. Delegates can capture those improvements in your Trust and in your surveys. Later in the deliberation, you’ll receive a report of the improvements suggested by the Assembly, for further consideration and discussion.

Yes! New ideas are critical. After reviewing the actions narrowed by the Solutions team, you and your trust will have time to generate your own ideas based on what you think is missing.

Absolutely. The Unify Montrose team is compiling the summary of Action ideas from the Solution Team and Focus Group sessions. All Delegates will receive that list of ideas and key categories and it will be linked here.

Delegates will have a full session devoted to costs. Since the initial Actions are jumping-off points, they will change with Delegate feedback, and some may be dismissed altogether. So after Delegates review the initial Action ideas and generate improvements and additions, the Assembly will review budgets. That means the detailed budgets and costs that Delegates review will reflect the improvements suggested throughout the process.

Yes, it has. The aim of this deliberation, if successful, is a Plan of the People. That plan is not a tactical plan, but a strategic plan — meaning it includes big ideas the Assembly likes. If we were building a house, a strategic plan would answer the question: what does that house look like, about how many rooms? In the original approach, you’d end up deliberating how many chairs we want for the dining room table. Consideration of investment will be part of the deliberation during a future Meetup.

No, they are not.

Answered on 10/20/23

This is outside the scope of the deliberation on childcare. But, since we are collecting comments of Delegates and including them in our report, we will include this as a comment.