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Public Involvement

The public is encouraged to stay engaged with the project by requesting speakers at your community organization meetings;  attending open houses; and submitting your questions and comments to the following project team member:  

Jeremy Busby, Project Manager
Georgia Department of Transportation
jbusby@dot.ga.gov
(404) 631-1154

Public Information Open House

A Public Information Open House, anticipated to be scheduled for early 2012, will offer the public a formal opportunity to review and provide input on impacts relating to the bridge project. In the meantime, the project team will be working with a Community Stakeholder Group to review environmental, historical, and community impacts and the importance of this bridge.

Stakeholder Committee

The Stakeholder Committee, also commonly known as the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), is an advisory group that meets at project milestones during the concept phase of project development. These meetings allow members to discuss project alternatives and encourage participation in project decision-making where applicable. The committee members are individuals who represent a diverse variety of groups and perspectives.

Members

In the interest of group facilitation and consensus building, the Stakeholder Committee is limited in size from 12 to 20 members (depending on the size of the project). Group decisions are made by consensus and a variety of consensus-building techniques and activities are used to structure group discussion.

Purpose

The purpose of the Stakeholder is multi-faceted. Primarily, it allows the Department to enter into the community and begin building partnerships with and networking information to community members via their community leaders. Additionally, the committee offers an opportunity for true public involvement at the beginning of the conceptual process.

 

It offers a mechanism to channel the energies of the community and affords representatives of active community groups to be heard in a constructive way. By participating in discussions and facilitated sessions concerning the issues of the project, the committee members bring new perspectives and fresh ideas to the project team. By virtue of their involvement in project discussions, committee members have become partners with the Department.

Roles and Responsibilities

Some of the roles and responsibilities of the Committee include:

  • To gather input about the project issues from the constituency represented and bring these issues to the committee and to distribute information and the decisions of the committee back to the constituency represented.
  • To define the critical issue of the project from the needs and desires of the constituency represented.
  • To create a “mission statement” about the critical issues, and the need and purpose of the project.
  • To assist in the development of alternate concepts based on constraints presented – local, design, environmental (man-made and natural), financial – and to analyze these concepts for compliance with the mission statement and the critical issues. Also, to eliminate the concept alternates that do not comply.
  • To attend all Public Information Meetings (PIM) used to present the alternate(s) that the committee agrees upon and to answer questions by the PIM attendees.
  • To attend all committee meetings beginning in the concept development stage and throughout the design process