General Plan Community Engagement Summary
Vision Salinas: An Integrated Planning Initiative
In 2017, shortly after the adoption of the Economic Development Element (EDE), Visión Salinas was initiated to coordinate city-wide public outreach efforts. The EDE was instrumental in shifting City practices towards more equitable and inclusive engagement and served as a guide for the Visión Salinas outreach process. Visión Salinas’ extensive community engagement helped establish a foundation for the General Plan Update (GPU) by developing an Overarching Core Value and Guiding Principles that serve as the backbone of the GPU planning process. Visión Salinas was re-branded as Visión Salinas 2040 .
Overarching Core Value: An inclusive, diverse, and welcoming City where all persons can thrive.
This Overarching Core Value is embedded in each of the following Guiding Principles:
• Economic Prosperity, Equity, and Diversity
• Housing Opportunities for All
• Healthy and Safe Community
• Youth and Future
• Collaborative, Inclusive, and Engaged Decision Making • Livable and Sustainable Community
• Connectivity, Access, and Mobility
• A Community to Celebrate
Visión Salinas 2040 Engagement Strategy
The Visión Salinas 2040 community engagement strategy uses an equitable outreach approach, and builds of off lessons learned from recent community plan processes, which increased efforts to bring more voices into the conversation. At the beginning of the Visión Salinas 2040 /GPU process, COVID-19 brought new challenges to outreach and required new and deliberate strategies to make sure the process was equitable and inclusive of Salinas’ diverse voices. Community engagement summaries for the Working Groups and workshops/webinars are available at:
www.visionsalinas.com/comengage
Key numbers:
• 11,200+ total people engaged
• 5,913 People reached through Global Budget Engagement using Guiding Principles • 22 Large Workshops
• 17 Pop-ups at community events and public spaces
• 16 Steering Committee Meetings
• 8 Working Group Meetings
Key Objective: removing barriers to participation and building capacity:
The City took many steps to enable community members to participate in the planning process at the level they desired, whether someone wanted to simply share their ideas through a pop-up, by attending a workshop, or if they wanted sustained participation in the multi-year planning effort. These steps included:
• Holding virtual meetings during social distancing protocols, • Holding meetings after business hours, typically from 6-8 PM, • Providing food and childcare, when appropriate,
• Conducting workshops and meetings in English, with translation to Spanish, and bilingual materials (when appropriate), Mixteco interpretation when requested, and • Contracting outside outreach support to reach underserved populations.
Community Engagement Structure
Steering Committee:
The Steering Committee is comprised of key community stakeholders representing local agencies, community based organizations, the business sector, agriculture, schools, youth, and one representative for each of the six City Council districts and one representing the Mayor. The Visión 2040 Steering Committee is responsible for:
• Guiding the General Plan Update process and document structure • Communicating information and priorities to drive engagement • Developing content within Working Groups
• Providing guidance on project issues and key policy topics Steering Committee meeting materials are available at:
https://www.visionsalinas.org/steeringcommittee.
Working Groups:
The purpose of the Working Groups was to allow residents, stakeholders and technical advisors the chance to expand on the 2002 General Plan’s goals, policies and actions. Working Group members had the opportunity to expand on, vet and refine the content outlined in the policy matrices. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the early Working Group meetings were offered on Zoom and later transitioned to in person meetings centered around the Plan's three pillars of Built Environment, Natural Systems and Socioeconomic Systems. Meetings were exclusively held in the evenings to allow for more participation with food and translation available. • February 16th, 2022: Built Environment
• March 9th, 2022: Socioeconomic Systems
• March 17th, 2022: Natural Systems
• March 23rd, 2022: Built Environment
• April 7th, 2022: Socioeconomic Systems
• April 19th, 2022: Natural Systems
• April 21st, 2022: Built Environment
• May 11th, 2022: Socioeconomic Systems
Community Workshops/Webinars:
The City held twenty-two (22) community workshops covering a variety of topics. In the early stages of the GPU process, workshops were held on Zoom and later transitioned to large in-person meetings.
• August 17th, 2021: District 2 Land Use Workshop
• August 19th, 2021: District 1 Land Use Workshop
• August 26th, 2021: District 3 Land Use Workshop
• September 1st, 2021: District 4 Land Use Workshop
• September 9th, 2021: District 6 Land Use Workshop
• October 7th, 2021: District 5 Land Use Workshop
• October 13th, 2021: City at large Land Use Workshop
• January 20th, 2022: Existing Conditions/Working Group Kick-off • April 28th, 2022: Climate Action Plan Webinar
• June 29th, 2022: Community Design Webinar
• September 28th & 29th, 2022: Environmental Justice Workshops • March 28th and 29th, 2023: Public Safety Workshops
• April 19th, 26th and 27th, 2023: Housing Element Workshops • November 2nd: Active Transportation Workshop
• February 1st, 2024: Transportation Open House
• February 27th, 28th, 29th, 2024: Land Use Info Sessions Pop-ups:
Community Development staff, with some outside support from the Center for Community Advocacy, completed seventeen (17) pop-up activities at community events and public spaces.
They were designed to quickly attract and engage community members, share information, and provide a voice to residents who are affected but have not been represented in the collaborative process.
Sustainable Agriculture Lands Conservation Grant (SALC) Engagement:
In 2020, The City was awarded a grant through the California Department of Conservation, the Sustainable Agriculture Lands Conservation Grant (SALC) to support Visión Salinas 2040. The SALC grant augmented public engagement efforts focused on direct outreach to farmworkers.
With the support of the Center for Community Advocacy (CCA) and eleven (11) General Plan Update Ambassadors, over nine hundred (900) farmworkers have been reached and a total of three thousand four hundred and fifty (3,450) Salinas community members were engaged through pop-up activities, food bank distributions, and lunch time field visits. This outreach was supported by staff with the preparation of pop-up materials focused on environmental justice, public safety, transportation, and housing.
The City also established a Technical Advisory Committee (Ag TAC) to assist with the development and review of a Salinas Agriculture Economic and Land Use Study (Study).
The Ag TAC had representatives from Western Growers, the Monterey County Farm Bureau, Monterey County Vintners Association, and the Grower-Shipper Association. The Ag TAC helped develop the scope of work for the Study consultant, participated in interviews and assisted with connecting the consultants with other agriculture stakeholders, and reviewed the Study.
City Budget Engagement:
Over the last few years, the City has been committed to a robust community engagement process designed around the preparation of the City annual budget. The 2022 and 2023 City Budget engagement process included forty (40) pop-up activities and over four thousand (4,000) survey responses. This feedback was reviewed and helped establish GPU topic priorities and new goals, polices and actions.
Other General Plan Update Communication:
• Project website-visionsalinas.org
• Public notices
• Radio interviews
• Email blasts
• Letters and postcards
• Social media (City Facebook and Instagram)
• La Plaza 5 AM Pop-up – meant to engage farmworkers at a popular bakery on their way to work.
• LCS Activity Kit – 400 kits distributed through the Salinas rec centers to share GP information.
• Coasters – 500 distributed to restaurants and bars. Coasters shared information related to the project website and invited folks to complete a General Plan survey. • House meetings - through the SALC Grant , General Plan Ambassadors completed 95 house meetings. This is a common grassroots community organizing strategy where you hold small meetings anywhere community members are gathered, most often in their homes.