فیلم روز برنامه‌ریزان در پیش از ظهر در ساختمان کاپیتول

Title:Planners’ Day on Capitol Hill Pre-Briefing

برای جلسات روز برنامه ریزان با نمایندگان کنگره آماده شوید. آنچه را که باید انتظار داشته باشید، درک کنید، مسائل و سؤالات کلیدی را درک کنید، و ابزارهایی را انتخاب کنید که به شما کمک می کنند تا تجربه خود را در Capitol Hill به حداکثر برسانید. برای ثبت نام در کنفرانس سیاست و حمایت از APA در سال ۲۰۱۷، به سایت مراجعه کنید https://planning.org/policy/conference/. (برچسب ترجمه

قسمتی از متن فیلم: Good afternoon everyone this is Jason Jordan a pas director of policy and government affairs coming to you from our office in Washington DC thank you very much for joining us for today’s webinar our topic today is preparation for our planners day on Capitol Hill program if you’re on this call chances

Are you have already signed up and registered for the event our goal here today is to get you fully prepared to walk you through everything you need to know in advance of this event I’ll just say at the outset a couple of housekeeping things one is that this

Webinar will be recorded and it will be posted in its entirety on the planning org website the APA website and you can find the recording in the policy conference section of the website so if you need to make reference to the slides or go back and re-listen to some of the

Information that’s where you’ll be able to find it we will have it up late today the second message for you at the outset is that we very much want to answer any specific questions that you may have so we’ve reserved time at the end of the program for any questions or comments

From from you and you can input your question using the question box on the side of the webinar so let’s move on to talking about our program this year and like you could advance the next slide please thank you um as you probably know the program will be held on Tuesday

September 26 and that’s the last day of our series of leadership and policy conference related activities here in Washington and we’ll start out the day at the Loews Madison hotel with a variety of trainings and briefings and get you all set with materials and then meetings themselves will be scheduled

Throughout the day typically between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. and then we’ll have our congressional luncheon on Capitol Hill from 12:30 to 1:30 and we’ll talk more about some of the details of these various events as we go through the webinar today for those of you who may be new to

Planners day on Capitol Hill let me start with the the very basics what is this program planners day is our annual opportunity to bring members of APA planners and the issues of the organization directly to members of Congress and congressional staff as I mentioned it’s linked directly to the

Policy conference and our leadership meetings so folks will have the opportunity to spend a day and a half hearing from a variety of speakers about planning related policy issues and then use that information when when you head to Capitol Hill to meet directly with your representatives we handle the

Scheduling for the meetings and we provide advocacy training I’ll talk more about the different training venues and opportunities that you have but of course this this webinar itself is part of that why do we do this program well in a pretty straightforward way it’s our best opportunity to raise the profile of

Our issues and the organization and planning itself with the Congress it gives us a chance to build solid relationships lots of studies have demonstrated that the most effective communications with elected officials is the face-to-face meeting with constituents so this is a real opportunity to either advance the relationship that you already have with

Your congressional representatives or really start by building a firm foundation for that relationship it’s also obviously a major opportunity for us to advance our own legislative priorities and policy concerns as you know this has been an interesting and it’s always trying year for a lot of our policy concerns as an organization so

This year is a particularly important opportunity for us to go to Capitol Hill to lay out our concerns and our agenda and we have spent a lot of effort you all have spent a lot of effort over the last couple of years building our planners advocacy Network and so this is

One of the real marquee events of the year for members the network to use all the grassroots advocacy skills that you’ve been developing over the year and bring them directly to members of Congress in terms of some of the training that’s available obviously we’re doing the pre-conference

Webinar today but you will have several other training opportunities I just want to briefly highlight on Sunday so the first day of the conference there’s a series of pre conference training activities including a long bootcamp on the morning there on Sunday and I should mention that the full schedule for all

The policy conference related activities is available on the web sites or realize there’s not dates and times associated with everything on this slide but you can go get all the details on the agenda at the website but we will start today with a bootcamp for grassroots advocates

We’ll have an opportunity for you to provide input and ideas on the emerging issue of policy related to autonomous vehicles both our research department and our policy and advocacy department are working right now on a variety of resources related to autonomous vehicles and we wanted to include in a conference

A listening session of sorts to give members and leaders a chance to to shape and influence the direction of our work on AVS that is all supplemented with a variety of leadership and communication training sessions so we have a full day really of training opportunities on Sunday of the

Conference on Monday and really throughout the the conference we’ll have staff available at the registration area who can provide assistance on anything related to your meetings so if you need information on how your meeting is going to go or win or any of that stuff there’ll be a helpdesk available to to

Help you get everything sorted before planners day and then on the day itself on Tuesday and we will begin with series of briefings both aimed at catching you up on all of the policy related details so anything that’s changed on in terms of the legislation our specific asks all of the

Policy background will be available for you there on Tuesday as well as some additional training that’s focused on how to make your meetings as effective as possible on tips and techniques on getting your message heard by members of Congress and one thing that I should also have mentioned on Sunday and we

Just backtrack for a quick second is that we will essentially repeat this program with updated material at lunch on Sunday so if you’re if you’re there a little bit early on Sunday you’ll have a chance to go through this information one more time with us what do we provide

Well there are a lot of resources that are available and some of my colleagues are going to discuss that in more detail as we go through today but let me just give you a quick overview as I mentioned before we handle all of your scheduling needs and we’ll craft an itinerary for

You customize to you and that will all be available for you digitally and which we’ll learn more about in a little while we provide this training as well as the other events that I mentioned an ongoing staff support all throughout the period leading up to planners day and on the

Day itself and then there’ll be a an array of meeting materials that would be available a some in hardcopy some in digital form ranging from the leave behind as we call them the documents that you actually leave with congressional staff through to all of the logistical support information so

Maps information on your congressional offices and the forms that you will fill out to help us understand what happened in your meetings and all of this is really driven by the advocacy day app that will sort of help pull all this information together and help help guide you throughout the course of the

Planners day program there’ll be more information about that shortly let me run quickly through some of the questions that are most often raised by folks participating in planners day the the the most common questions the first one here you see on the screen do I have to make my own appointments and

The short answer to that is no if you have registered you signed up then our staff are working hard right now on scheduling your appointments and they will prepare customer itineraries so that all of your meetings and all the information related to meetings will be presented for you and you’ll have all

That information available if you do have any special requests or problems that we need to be aware of um you can just shoot us an email there government affairs govt T Affairs at Planning org and we’ll we’ll be in touch with you to to address that will you be alone or in

A group the answer to this question really depends on exactly who is participating in planners Day from your area all of the appointments are driven by constituencies so your appointments are made based on the state you live in and the congressional district you live in if there are other people from that

State and district participating then you will will be having your meeting as part of a group and all of that group information is provided on your itinerary so you can see who else from your area will be going to the meetings in some instances you may be the only

Person from your district so you might have state meetings as a group but your House meeting might be just you if you need assistance we can certainly work with you on on making sure that that’s available and getting you all the materials you need to be confident in

Conducting your meetings how will you find out your schedule well this is going to be discussed in more detail when we go through the Handy advocacy day app but I will simply say that via app all of the itinerary information will be available and regularly updated

So that um prior to heading to the hill you can access all of your scheduling information onion earlier but there will be a helpdesk available if you have questions or problems on the Monday before planners day how will you get there as I mentioned we will start out the day at

The host hotel for the conference the Lowe’s Madison in downtown Washington we will allow people to travel independently to Capitol Hill your best options would be either using the public transportation network here in Washington or to grab a taxi from the hotel there’s detailed travel information available along with your materials

Generally speaking the House and Senate office buildings for your meetings will happen are walkable and close together so once you get to Capitol Hill you can move around between your meetings and pretty easily on on foot part of the reason that we don’t take everyone to

The hill at the same time is that your meetings are dispersed throughout the day based on the availability with the congressional offices so this gives everyone a bit more flexibility but again there’ll be staff available in the day of to help you with any of your transportation needs in terms of

Materials that you need to bring you don’t necessarily have to bring a thing all of the materials that you need for your meeting will be available leave behind the one pagers are all provided for you this year we are providing some new resources you’ll get a template in

Advance that you can fill out with your own local district information if you wish is completely optional but you’ll have a template to work for them because some people do find it helpful to bring photos of projects or charts and graphs infographics other sorts of local information that can help really bolster

Your case and I would ask you to keep in mind the sort of limited tolerance that Hill offices have for a lot of paper so leave your 40 page plan and your 500 page project documents back in the office but nice one-page summary of key local activities can be effective and again

We’ll be working with you if you’re interested in putting that kind of resource together but don’t fret there will be the basic weave on materials all provided for you well I meet with the congressman well the answer there is it depends we certainly make every effort to schedule

The appointment directly with the member of Congress but this will be a busy week and schedules are always challenging on Capitol Hill so many of the meetings most of the meetings will be with staff but it’s important to underscore the importance and the critical role that

Staff play so having a meeting with a staff person is in no way to suggest that the meeting isn’t important or valuable in fact you may have a much more substantive exchange with a staff person who handles the issue and be able to go into more detail so we will

Request meeting with a member of Congress but you may well end up meeting with staff but your itinerary will reflect the latest information we have about the person with whom you’ll be meeting in terms of what you should do in advance we’re going to have a section

Of slides for the end of today’s webinar that give you some specific guidance but in general if you’re on the call today you’re doing the right thing take advantage of the resources and the training programs think about the issues that you’re going to raise how you want to raise them examples particularly

Local examples so that you can kind of prepare a script of sorts for how you want to engage the staff person or the member of Congress in your meeting you will be able to eat during the course of the day breakfast will be served at the hotel will have a box lunch available

During the luncheon on Capitol Hill if you need anything throughout the day there cafeterias scattered throughout the congressional campus so you shouldn’t have any challenges with either a place to sit down and rest in between meetings or if you need to get refreshments and then of course we will have the two the

Two food events during the day in terms of luggage the best approach really even though it may not necessarily be the most convenient is to leave your luggage at the hotel you can certainly bring small bags to congressional offices but there’s no luggage storage available to

You on Capitol Hill and you will be subject to security screening so it’ll take longer to get through the more materials that you have there or if you’re traveling by train and there are luggage lockers at Union Station which is the main Amtrak station and is also pretty close to the Senate office

Building so that may be an option for you as well but they’re really the easiest thing is to make your travel arrangements in a way that would allow you to leave luggage at the hotel and then swing back by before leaving so I’m going to turn the program over now to

Takeda who is going to walk you through the advocacy day app which is really your your most important resource as you prepare for planners day on Capitol Hill and certainly once you’re here on sites okay take it away thank you so much Jason I so for those of you that I

Haven’t met yet I’m Katie akaky and I’m part of the team that has been scheduling your congressional budget I just want to spend some time today going over our advocacy day app which has a lot of great tools and resources that you’ll be able to take advantage of

Before during and after your hell visits some of you may have used the app in previous years and you don’t have access to it again this year as well you also should have received an email a little bit earlier this afternoon from APA about the app so don’t worry about

Seriously scribbling any of this down in addition to having access to the recording of this webinar a lot of the information that you need in order to access the app is included in that email that went out a couple of hours ago so efficacy day is a multi-platform app

It’s available for iPhone or iPad in the App Store and for Android in the Google Play Store you just search advocacy day on one word or you can also access a web version of the app from the link listed here and that email that you received earlier today will have detailed instructions on

How to download and use the app as well as your personalized login if for any reason you did not receive the email please let us know as soon as possible and we’ll get you the information that you need today I just want to go over the basic features for you and give you

An idea of what you’ll be able to do with the app now and what you’ll be able to do with the Apple II there and that’s why presumably so the first thing I want to mention is that while the app will provide your full meeting schedule

You’re not going to be able to see your schedule in the app just yet we’re still in the very infantile stages of scheduling your meetings most congressional schedulers won’t finalize a meeting until closer to one week out as if we had your schedule and able now

There wouldn’t be much going on there so when you log into the app you’re automatically brought to the schedule page and for now all you’ll see there is a disclaimer that your schedule is currently disabled down the line when we enable your schedule you’ll be able to

View all of your meeting details and you’ll also receive a push notification if there’s a change to one of your meetings we’ll also call you with any changes when you’re on the hill which is why we asked for your cell phone number during registration and I also just want

To note that once you get closer to the date your meeting schedule is also going to be emailed to you as well and we’ll also have a printer on site at the help desk if you’d like a printed copy of your schedule so don’t worry if you’re

Not an app person you’ll still have access to your schedule and other ways as well next slightly thank you so let me also briefly go over some of the features you’ll be able to utilize once you’re on the hill and in your meetings first you’ll be able to map to your

Meetings you can GPS enhance walking routes you’ll also be able to take notes about your meetings view talking points that you should try to touch on during your meetings and see your leave behind materials right in the app and you also have the option to email as these

Electronic versions of the leave behind so for example in addition to handing a piece of paper to the person you met with in the office you could email it directly to them as well as a form of follow-up you also be able to fill out a feedback

Survey about each of your meetings which we highly encourage you to do it’s very helpful for EPA staff to get that feedback about how your meetings went and see if any follow up needs to be done there are also some social features in the app that you can take advantage of

You can post to Twitter or Facebook straight from the app and you can also send messages to other participants through a secure chat platform so for example if you’re trying to coordinate with someone who’s in the same meeting as you you could send them a message for

Surely through the app to coordinate on when and where the meet up next slide please so now let’s go over the feature that you can take advantage of right now as soon as you log in one of the first things that you can and should do is research for members of Congress that

You’ll be meeting with from the legislators tab in the app as a members whose offices you will be meeting with will be listed and you can click on any of your legislators to read through their bio a view their committee and subcommittee information look through their various social media pages look at

Their website and see a running newsfeed with any recent articles in which they were mentioned you’ll also be able to review the bills that are relevant to your issues so for each fill you can see a summary of the bill this current status of the bill whether your

Legislators have co-sponsored or not and whether there have been any votes on the bill as there’s a few bills in the app so you want to make sure that you scroll through and look at each bill individually and additionally as soon as you log into the app you will also have

Access to the documents section where you can review any materials that APA is prepared for you like briefing materials and week behind and so those are some of the great tools that you can use to research your members and issues in advance so that you’re totally prepared

When you come to DC next slide please and actually maybe go back one slide I believe there’s a slide with my contact information okay it’s not here we’ll get that out to you we’ll make sure it’s included in the slides that are on the website um but if you have any questions

At all you can reach out to me my email address is kya k ack i at advocacy associates comm and if you have any questions feel free to reach out to APA staff as well and they’ll make sure that we’ll get connected so that’s it for me

Thanks so much and I’ll pass it back to Jason Thank You Katie much appreciated so now to talk a little bit about the specific issues and our ask I’m going to turn the program over to another colleague Tess Embry who’s going to walk you through issues we’ll be discussing during

Planners day thanks Jason so just a bit started we’re going to be focusing like we have in the past on place-based federal programs and on new this year is a focus on infrastructure investments and proposals that may be forthcoming and so to take it look first at the

Climate on Capitol Hill if you’ve been here before for Lobby days and I think you’ll be familiar with what September is like in DC almost universally it’s kind of a chaotic month with news happening really quickly this year is no different September has a lot of legislative

Priorities that Congress has to get true these aren’t things that they’d like to get through these things have actual hard deadlines that they must meet and so disaster relief both hurricane Harvey and Irma will require significant supplemental spending that they’ll need to deal with very soon to allow disaster

Relation was forward something called the debt ceiling expires on September 29th and I’ll get more into that in a minute the fiscal year ends on September 30th and there’s a whole bunch of authorizations that expire that are important fAA flood insurance and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a few other

Things so these are a lot of it’s a pretty big agenda for Congress who isn’t used to necessarily passing so many things at one time so it’s a big list for them and a lot of us came back to Washington DC after August response assuming that these things would get

Pushed off until the very end of the month on Congress liked to procrastinate on things and it’s usually easier to make a deal and get something done when you’re really butting up against that deadline but a second date attack after August recess it seems like some of

These things might be moving a little bit more quickly than we anticipated so the here is changing constantly and so I would urge you to take whatever I say right now with a grain of salt because I’m watching as we speak they stand changed what I was about to tell

You so make sure that you check back in with us at any of the updates that will be giving during the conference so that you are up to speed on what’s happening I’m so shifting over to specifically what we’ll be asking you to talk about in your meetings and support for federal

Place-based investments and specifically the Community Development Block Grant Program Tiger New Starts for transit on choice neighborhoods initiatives and Community Development Block Grant Program and it was listed twice I’m so taking a look at what the status of Appropriations is right now the current fiscal year is going to end on September 30th

So we’ll start fiscal year 18 on October 1st luckily our Lobby Day is not on October 1st this year on some of you may have been around for the holiday when we were trying to navigate a shutdown federal government which was a whole lot of fun for us but thankfully we’ll avoid

That this year because appropriators and Congress didn’t manage to finalize the full budget and appropriations process in theory they’re supposed to have passed 12 appropriations bills in both the Senate and the house sent them to the President’s desk for a final signature by now none of the appropriations bills has

Gone through the regular order so we’re looking at needing to find the entire government through what’s known as a continuing resolution or some sort of a stopgap measure and what this says is just continues on the previous year funding levels so in this case of the

Fiscal year 17 onit is a new fiscal year so that there’s no government shutdown or interruption in funding for government programs as of a couple days ago there was still debate about how long a continuing resolution should last most years recently they’ve aimed for about three months which puts down the

End of the resolution right around middle of December like I said earlier having some sort of a hard deadline to press members to get a deal done is usually pretty good tactic for passing big legislation like that and so they like to aim for the winter holiday recess as a threat

To get members to go forward with full your funding so it looks like this year that’s probably going to be the case the Senate just moved forward with a large package that I’ll talk about in a second that includes a three-month continuing resolution that would expire on December

۸ and so that’ll need to be passed before October 1st and I am optimistic that that will be done by the time you guys arrive in Washington so stay tuned for an update on that there’s a couple of things that we thought would complicate the conversation but passing

Some sort of a CR the debt ceiling is one of them like I mentioned we will reach the debt ceiling on September 29th and the Treasury’s has estimated and what that means is that we no longer have the ability to repay our existing debt obligations so this is not new new

Spending new programs and it’s not the budget it’s just basically paying our own credit card bills and there’s a limit on how long or how much you can spend based on what Congress decides to put a limit at and on September 29th we will reach that point if Congress does

Not act then we will not be able to pay our debts and that’s a pretty big deal just economically because it’s not ideal obviously not to pay your debts and but in the past raising that debt ceiling or extending that debt ceiling has been linked to appropriations and they’ve

Used it some members of Congress have used it successfully to leverage spending cuts so we have pay attention to this for appropriations purposes because of late in 2011 with the Budget Control Act that was a result of a debt ceiling debate and that’s how we got sequestration so even though the debt

Ceiling itself doesn’t necessarily have a direct impact on spending or appropriations that is a whole conversation about what we should be doing fiscally as a nation can really have a huge impact on how much money is available for appropriations in future years that seems to have settled down at least for

The second the package that I mentioned that included a continuing resolution in the Senate until December 8th also extends the debt ceiling until September 8th so we’re looking like we’re setting up for another like fiscal cliff as they like to call it but it looks like at

Least for now that conversation will be pushed off until a little bit later and another thing that we thought maybe could complicate this conversation but looks like it’s being solved as disaster relief some members of Congress have argued in the past that we should offset any disaster really spending with other

Spending cuts with Hurricane Irene and I think it was 2011 or 12 they actually thought CDBG funding and push it over to the disaster relief for that hurricane and so something we pay close attention to because it has a very direct impact on programs or importance of dinners –

Said so far the disaster relief packages that now have passed the House and the Senate do not include offsets so the House passed yesterday a seven and a half billion dollar package for Harvey disaster relief in the Senate just a minute ago voted to move forward with a 15 billion dollars

Harvie disaster relief bill that doesn’t include offsets so so for that drama is not popping up again but again we’ve got hurricane irene sent to hit Florida this week error much said to hit Florida this weekend so it’s something to keep an around like I said the house did pass

That disaster really spill on the Senate put together a package this afternoon with that CR the debt ceiling extension and it included I double that the house put had passed for disaster relief that was all packaged together and I’ve voted through a procedural vote in the Senate

On just a minute ago so I expect that that should be sent back that Senate package should be sent back over to house this week but there’s some really interesting politics going on with this the president has agreed to a package deal like in the Senate package deal with senators Senator Schumer and

Minority Leader Pelosi it’s an interesting arrangement between the Democratic congressional leaders and the Republican president he said that he would agree to their offer of a three-month debt ceiling and see our raise in exchange for delivering Democratic votes the president went along with it and seems to think that

This is a good idea which is great so that this doesn’t become a huge dramatic issue at the end of the month it could threaten our national economy but it’s a really interesting dynamic to see this all playing out and once the house receives that package from this Senate

It’s a little unclear about what’s going to happen Ryan earlier today said that the president wanted to work on a bipartisan effort to get disaster relief done and that’s what that agreement was Schumer and Pelosi was about but just a few minutes ago 150 more conservative GOP

Members in the house sent a letter to speaker Ryan expressing their dismay at the agreement to do this so presumably if Ryan does bring the vote to bring the bill to a vote they will move forward with that and it’ll be a done deal but he hasn’t signaled yet whether he’s

Willing to do that my assumption would be that it will be done by the time you guys get here but this has been a pretty chaotic here so sometimes it’s not good to make those kinds of predictions all of that aside and presumably they will pass them sort

Of a long term some sort of a three-month CR at some point in the month of September and one thing that I would focus on in your meetings with members of Congress regardless of how this plays out over the next few weeks is the impact of a long-term CR on you

Since we were funding off of multiple stopgap bills this current fiscal year until May presumably that had an impact on your abilities to plan and use CDBG and home funds and that puts off the timeline for a client for tighter and choice grants that kind of thing it’s a really ineffective way to

Govern and it would be good for you guys to talk a little bit about how that has been back to do if it has and again like I would urge them to adopt a full your spending bill as quickly as possible to avoid that kind of long-term CR situation again I’m looking specifically

At the programs know that we have a bigger picture what we have requested for each program is an organization is based off of a few things most notably what our partner organizations and coalition’s have requested here in DC so the Community Development Block Grant program we asked Congress to by provide

At least 3.3 billion dollars for it’s a three hundred million dollar increase from where we are currently and would help set help to restore the programs where it was about ten years ago at about four billion dollars the whole program we asked that Congress provides at least 1.2 billion dollars for the

Home program it’s currently at nine hundred million so that would be about a three hundred million dollar increase on the choice neighborhoods program we asked that at the Congress for by two hundred million dollars which would be I think it’s about a 68 million dollar increase in current levels

Tiger requests five hundred and fifty million dollars which is a 50 million dollar increase and New Starts provide at least 2.3 billion dollars is authorized under the staffs act next slide Thanks so these are just charts letting me know exactly where we stand with the programs for the most part they our tradition

System specially CDBG I’m twist neighborhoods is kind of up and down the houses proposal II 20 million dollars which is barely enough for one implementation grant the Senate increased it a little bit for FY 18 to 50 million but it’s still not a significant amount of money to provide

Planning implementation grants in any sort of meaningful way the CDBG A’s had pretty consistent support across the board there hasn’t been an increase in CBG in a number of years so that’s why we asked for that but both the House and the Senate at least have decided to

Carry forward with level of funding the tiger program and one of my numbers is for the tiger program is a controversial one within the house and they have chosen to eliminate it just like the president did which is unfortunate it’s currently funded at 500 million dollars and that missing value there is the

Senate’s proposal of 550 million dollars which would be a 15 million dollar increase and then the New Starts program Jason do you want to talk about that are you and your I can say a quick word about that so the New Starts program this is the pipeline for major new

Transit investments this program was funded as you can see at 2.3 billion dollars the administration proposed essentially eliminating New Starts funding down to the level that would cover the communities who have current agreements so there would be no new new starts and under their proposal and that

Was left largely in place by the house now there’s some funding in the House bill for New Starts but it wouldn’t cover new projects it would largely be spent on the Gateway rail tunnel project connecting New York New Jersey and then the front the programs that are already

In the pipeline so no additional funds for other projects from the Senate bill is is a bit better certainly and would allow for some new projects so you can see there the difference we are calling for so-called full funding the the full authorized amount for for the final 18 amount thanks Jason

Um oh sorry can you go back one more time thanks okay so the big picture in appropriations and the numbers are important that we’ll have handouts for you on so you don’t have to commit them to memory but the big picture is that the President’s budget I’m chose to eliminate all of these

Programs and the house in front of tiger aside decided to restore these programs um so just make sure that you communicate to your members of Congress that you appreciate the fact that the house and the Senate did reject the president’s proposal and talked really personally about how the program’s

Impact your community and because we move on this year but it’s going to be a long haul over the next few years to make sure that these programs continue to exist so the more members of Congress understand the impacts the better off we’ll be great thanks Tess I’ll pick up a little

Bit here on a couple of related issues that we think could be valuable parts of the conversations that you have with congressional offices from planners day as you all are well aware there’s been a lot of talk a lot of action but a lot of talk about infrastructure spending and

There continues to be efforts to try to move a package forward where we’ve seen principles but we haven’t seen formal legislative language from either the White House or congressional committees but it continues to be a point of interest in debate earlier this year the APA board of directors adopted a pretty

Basic set of principles that APA believes should guide any new infrastructure package that comes out of the Congress so there will be materials available to you that outline these principles that you can see there on the screen and it’s really just a chance to highlight the fact that infrastructure

Investment is a legislative priority for APA that many communities face a serious crisis with infrastructure but that’s how we structure in a new package matters a great deal and that we think these principles are incredibly important for constructing any new infrastructure package and this relates back of course to some of the programs

That Tess was just talking about whether it retire or CDBG that provide funding so making the point that we don’t want to see any sort of new package come at the expense of proving programs but that as we think about moving beyond existing programs into additional infrastructure

That these are principles that can guide that debate and if you go to the next slide we are all too well aware that much of the country will be talking about it dealing with disaster issues and so we do plan to highlight some of the hazard mitigation and disaster

Planning issues as part of the package of materials and folks will have the ability to adopt this into their conversations as as you as you find relevant for your own community I just highlighted here on the slide some of the some of the big picture issues I’m Tess mentioned the movement of disaster

Aid through the Congress now I figure reflected here on the slide is what the House approved yesterday to send a package that just went through is considerably higher than that but that aid is certainly a big part of this equation but there’s some other more specific issues specific in the sense of

Specific to the appropriations process and the larger kind of public policy framework for Hazard Mitigation I’m one error challenges to the pre-disaster mitigation fund I was eliminating the President’s budget it is funded in both the House and Senate packages but I think it’s important that we register our support for trying to get

Ahead of these disasters and with mitigation and good planning flood insurance program assasinated expires at the end of the month there are a lot of mitigation planning and mapping issues associated with the flood insurance program so beyond the changes to the insurance itself there’s a lot of important planning related concerns that are

Likely to be associated with that that we can highlight and then lastly just a few weeks ago there was an executive order that rolled back earlier rules requiring certain evaluations of flood resiliency hazard resiliency in federal infrastructure funding so I’m certainly hurricane Harvey has pointed out how

Critical it is that as we make these federal investments that were being thoughtful about the potential hazard implications so we will have materials on this and you’ll have a chance to talk about it there are some special meetings and events to happen in conjunction with planners day this year we will have our

Luncheon featuring congressman Rodney Davis of Illinois talking about infrastructure and because the great places program kicks off in October we will be having a number of meetings related to great places to highlight those communities for the relevant members of Congress that will also be a big highlight of reception on Monday

Night we’ll be celebrating 10 years of great places in America with a reception on Capitol Hill I’m let me turn now to getting you prepared for your meetings we want to talk a little bit about sort of some meeting basics the audience your message and some things that you can do

In advance to to get fully prepared for them for your meetings oh the next slide so let’s begin with you some very broad principles don’t try to be concerned about being the expert on all the things that test is an expert in in terms of the appropriations process most important

Thing you can bring to these meetings is your expertise on planning in your community it is more than okay to not know the specific legislative answer what’s most important is that you express the view as an expert as a constituent to someone working with these programs on the ground in your

Community I mentioned before the staff meetings are very important so don’t dismiss the role that staff play in all of this we always warn people that the logistics can be challenging when you’re dealing with congressional offices the offices are small this time of year very busy with committee hearings and votes

So you may be asked to meet in reception area or in a hallway or to meet the member coming out of a hearing room these are all pretty standard things that happen on a day to day basis especially if when the hill is busy in no way does it diminish the importance

Of your meeting you are expected to have something that you ask for some people feel a little shy about I’m having a request but that’s a really fundamental part of the meeting process and so that’s built into the expectations that they have so don’t be nervous about that

And then of course we always try to remind us that the goal here is building a relationship over time I’m with the office with the member of Congress and with the staff so think about the planners day on Capitol Hill meeting itself as the start of an advocacy

Process not not the endpoint so knowing your audience Katie mentioned some of the terrific features in the app that can help a great deal with this they’re also clearly resources available online as well but it’s useful to give a little bit of thought to your representatives background his professional background

Other sorts of interests that he may have or she may have mning these programs in this discussion in a way that’s particularly relevant so for instance that member of Congress may have held local elected office and so when they were on the City Council maybe that gives them a window of

Understanding planning issues and and helps you localize the context I’m think too about any key committee roles so if you find out that the person you’re meeting with serves on say the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and that makes them particularly important and relevant in the infrastructure discussion and is a

Point that you can underscore in your meetings give some thought to their their key issues oftentimes you’ll find that a member of Congress has a priority issue or two and that there may be some ways to link what you’re there to talk about with things that are already a

High priority for the office is just about messaging and framing in some instances clearly they may have taken positions in previous votes in previous years in previous elected offices to the degree that you can find that information out or know about it it’s really really useful for you to know

Where they have been and how they have engaged on the issue if you have staff relationships then that certainly comes into play here you can reference work that you may have done with the local staff office or with other staff in that office on on different issues and then

Lastly think about any community connections groups that you may be a part of organizations that may be particularly supportive of either some of these programs or some local projects so try to get a little bit into the mind of that staff person or that member of Congress as you think about the

Arguments and the stories that you want to make and then focus on building your message so once you’ve done that bit of background think about how you want to package all the information we’ve given you into into a storyline into a narrative and they’re just soon some pretty straightforward suggestion to you

۱ establish your credibility as both a constituent as well as expert on these programs an expert on these issues so use your role as a planner with a good grasp of the local context and local priorities and capital projects and so forth that’s a big part of why you’re

You’re sitting there in that office and why they should be listening to you think about the overall context could be things that are happening nationally could be some specific context of activities or the economy for instance in your local area localize the issue one of the most important things that

You can provide as a constituent is helping the office understand how these programs are needed or how they play out at the local level how all of these things factor into two local plans one of our perennial suggestions is to think about personal stories and doesn’t have

To be your story per se the stories that you can tell about human impacts in the local community really bring the meeting to life and help them understand why you’re asking for what you’re asking for what the impact of that project is and those stories can be about the value

That previous funds have delivered in the community or it can be a demonstration of why they’re needed and and show how what the need is for local people or that these programs can can help solve you do want to get the issue information so some of that’s provided

Here more information will be in the one-pagers but you can also think about accessing information that’s related to you know how say CDBG or Tiger has benefited your community in the past but you do want to have some of those facts and figures but I don’t think you want

To rely on them and live with some of the local and personal information but they are important and then you want to make your ask and test went through those and then set yourself up for for follow-up so that again this becomes the start of a conversation and not not a

One-off meeting and then traversing I’ll talk about this in a minute but there’s lots that you can do on social media to reinforce your visit and the issues that we are raising talk a little bit here about getting your fax and these are just some suggestions

There are lots of other ideas that you may want to use here but when you’re thinking about the local aspect of this look around in your office your agency for the results of previous federal investments in your community or projects that are already planned that hinge on some federal involvement of any

Sort think about the economic and social data the context that this would these projects would happen in your community oftentimes as planners you have access to a lot of economic and demographic information which can really help make the case that could be also in the form

Here the next item which is defining the need through statistics and data to help demonstrate why there’s a specific project that the community is pursuing and how the fact that these programs are available could help make that a reality it’s also beneficial to think a little bit about detailing to local champions

Might be or other supporters could be an elected official could be business leaders could be faith-based institutions it’s often helpful for the office to know the other players and institutions who are lined up in supportive projects to help make the overall political case so these facts will just help you be confident and

Comfortable in the way you frame the overall ask for for the programs so here’s just an example this isn’t intended to be a script but it’s just intended to give you a sense of how once you’ve done that homework you can weave them into a storyline that you use in

The office so this takes Community Development Block Grants is an example where you could say you know X dollars in previous CDBG funds led to this specific project in this specific neighborhood in r2 unity and that it leveraged you know whatever the amount of additional private investment or generated these

Specific benefits could be jobs could be other economic development as a way of using those local facts talk about the proven value of the program in the community and then you can look to the to the future and so with whatever the additional amount of CDBG funding would

Be combined with what we’re putting in locally we could build this specific project in this specific neighborhood that’s called for in our specific plan and we’ve identified these these specific benefits then you demonstrate a little bit of the need by talking about the specific neighborhood some of the

Need data contacts there could be unemployment rates for instance and then how it’s connected to things that maybe that office has already been supportive of like a local comprehensive planning process and then you as I mentioned before identifying those other champions who who are also on board with a project

So this is just a way of thinking about who are the people that you might want to go to in your office before you get on the plane to come to Washington to really help round out the way you talk about these federal programs in a way

That tells the local story and this isn’t just your CDBG this is to be for Tiger it could be for New Starts its whatever is relevant to the work that you’re doing because these meetings are intended to blend together sort of our big picture federal program priorities

But to really advance what you’re doing in in a local context or in a statewide context so here’s just some things as you’re doing your homework getting ready for for your meetings you want to talk with local colleagues to try to get the information that we were just talking

About look for those past projects and plan projects review local stats that may be kicking around your office certainly you want to use the app and other resources to get that background and issue history take a look at those one-pagers which are available in the

App but I do want to know that those could be updated based on change and information and legislative processes would go forward and if you have local materials could be maps could be infographics those sorts of things that could be used to highlight what’s happening locally it’ll pull those

Together into a format that could be useful in your meetings and then lastly I don’t think you have to write it out word for word but do you sort of prep a script for yourself it’ll really boost your your confidence and then of course after your meetings you want to build that relationship

I’m social media thank you use demonstrating that you’re going to stay engaged are all excellent ways as well as leveraging the fact that just a couple days later the start of October a national community planning month begins so there may be some opportunities to engage that office directly in in those

Activities with that let me turn it over to Trevor Grady Trevor handles our grassroots network large advocacy Network and he’s going to talk about some social media and some things you can do if you’re not going to be in DC Cartman thank you Jason and Emily comes back one slide

Jason position is Capitol Hill day opportunity perfectly in a previous slide we suggested that rather than think about this as an end of the interaction with representatives you should think of it as the beginning of your relationship after all legislators and their staffs meet with hundreds of people throughout the calendar year and

They chose to meet with you guys and the best way to ensure that your name remains top of mind for them is to continue to build that relationship even after your meetings is over even or as Jason suggested at this point you all have already met with the member of

Staff major ask told your story and left your lead beyond materials and this time will be to reinforce your ask in your community stories and remind them of your encounter immediately following your meeting of best practices that take the social media after your event while APA will have a professional

Photographer and staff members patrolling the halls snap pictures we still encourage personal and lots of selfies take a picture with legislative staff the member or in front of the members office and be sure to share on social media after your immediate follow up on social it’s

Always best to send a thank-you note as well they’re constantly packed these representatives and staff are constantly packed and you want to show that you valued their time just like they valued your input so send a thank-you email and feel free to draw sup your own by outlining the topics discussed and your

Ultimate ask or even easier you can just head to our advocates tool box on ATS website where you can find a sample thank-you letter as well all you have to do is fill in the blanks and hit Send stay engaged keep your legislators accountable by following their efforts

After your meeting so follow them on social media as well read our players advocacy network enews letters follow us at APA advocates on twitter and then invite your representatives to a local national community planning month event so after the policy conference has completed there won’t be much time so

Our next big advocacy effort begins which is October and that is National Community Planning Month this is a time when APA celebrating the planning behind the places the communities we love most APA just recently launched our new tool kit so we can help planners spread the

Word about the value of planning is a public and elected officials and this year we’re also helping folks invite their elected officials as well with a new action alert up in the tool kit we’re advocates can now get staff assistance and inviting their representatives to community events and

Then I’ll move to social media so as I discussed before while leveraging social media is a great way to follow up with your legislators after meetings have concluded and while you’re in DC it’s also good to get social beforehand it’s a great best practice to follow your representatives on Twitter and Facebook

So you can successfully follow their common talking points and frame your issues as Jason mentioned according to their messages during your meetings some best practices that keep in mind you while you’re on the hill is to ensure to use our hashtag and that is right there for you hashtag a pap a c-17

That will be seen all over the place and on social media tag your representatives as well on Twitter and make sure you’re following them beforehand and make sure to use those pictures you’ve taken along the way afterwards feel free to follow up after you have left DC feel free to

Follow up with your legislators on social media by thanking them as well as through that email and for more in depth best practices surrounding social media advocacy be sure to check out our advocacy boot camp there in the policy conference on Sunday starting at 9:15 or that opportunity will primarily focus on

Hands-on advocacy opportunities and utilization of social media for advocacy efforts while most people listening in on this webinar will be physically attending planners day it’s important to know that you’re not alone we’re urging planning advocates across the country to amplify your voice while you’re on the

Hill so and they will do so by participating virtual planners day for those of you who will not be sending claims down Capitol Hill more information will be heading your way through players advocacy network emails as an outline advocates you cannot make it Tuesday to Tuesday’s event will have

Many different opportunities to take action to sign up for planning all these opportunities will be made available through a piays easy you use Action Alerts that can be sent off at Mynt including drafted social media posts call script that’s easily accessible and the previously mentioned action alert

Where you can get APA staff assistance to plan a National Community Planning Month event this includes all of our posts planners day opportunities and virtual planners day events stay tuned for all of those coming soon I will hand it back over to our policy director Jason Jordan to

Answer any questions that may have came to your mind during this webinar hey thanks Trevor that’s great if you do have questions do feel free to send them in directly using the webinar system have a question here I’m regarding the National Flood Insurance Program and whether NFIP and similar programs can be

Extended through a CR like approach the answer that is yes and in fact the answer to that is it’s probably going to be handled that way we do expect that the Flood Insurance Program which expires the end of September will be extended through some mechanism that might extend it for three months six

Months something of that nature in order to give time for Congress to finish working on some of the bills that have been introduced already on this topic so there’s already been legislation passed through the House Financial Services Committee there’s pending bills in the Senate Banking Committee hard to see

Those making them all the way through the legislative process before this program would expire but it’s really quite unthinkable that they would let the insurance program expire at the moment so I think we can expect to see some of that CR like extensions and in fact it’s not impossible that it could

Could be included in some way in some of that appropriations work we have to have to wait and see but certainly something to keep an eye on but regardless of if the program is extended beyond September 30th by the time we get to planners day it’s important to TS some of those

Concerns related to flood insurance if if that’s a big issue for for your community so it’s a chance to talk about things like bolstering the the mapping program or expanding the mitigation assistance program there if that’s the only question I see right now that’s been been posted if you

Have other questions contact me my contact information is there on the slide or any of the staff who participated in today’s call we’re all available to assist you and make sure that all your questions get answered in advance of planter’s day on Capitol Hill thank you all so much for agreeing to be

Part of planners day this year we look forward to welcoming you to Washington at the end of the month thank you all for joining us and we will see you soon

ID: azeT58osqhE
Time: 1504883501
Date: 2017-09-08 19:41:41
Duration: 01:04:49

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