The NPO is helpful in mentoring this organization, but we have a long way to go. In Phase Two, this organization then becomes the foundation for the plan-making. Planners are crucial in this phase, but it is also very easy for the citizens to fall back and let the professionals do all of the work. But if that happens, we then run the risks of losing the immediacy and also of producing plans that we don't own. It seems that each step of the process involves some amount of reinventing the wheel.
New volunteers show up and have to be brought up to speed.
Some participants are wonks who understand the City bureaucracy and politics, and others don't have a clue. When we take time out to train the latter, we can alienate the former. Progress is difficult to measure in the middle of the process when you are developing and debating alternatives. Meetings - Planners do lots of meetings . Many citizens don't.