Working Group Proposal · v1 · Work in Progress

Common Ground

A community engagement strategy for the Altadena rebuild

For working group review & CAPS buy-in · May 21, 2026

A collaboration: Altadena Village · CoLab · Alting · Altagether

TL;DR

Altadena’s commercial and public spaces are being rebuilt. There’s no defined process for the community to shape what they become or see the impact of their input. We propose a five-step engagement process — anchored in proximity, supported by Altadena’s 150+ block captains, with subject & cause experts pulled in by relevance — and a small set of concrete tools to make it run. We’re asking CAPS to co-sign this process so it becomes the default guidelines for every project owner working in Altadena.

1Problem

Altadena’s rebuild is being shaped right now by:

6+ County agencies (Public Works, Regional Planning, Sanitation, Flood Control, Parks & Rec, Fire) on uncoordinated schedules
Utilities (Edison, SoCalGas, water companies) doing parallel infrastructure work
PUSD making school-site decisions
Private commercial developers rebuilding parcels
County-hired consultants (Paradigm, Toole) producing master-plan documents

Each runs its own engagement (or none). Residents are asked the same questions five times. Commercial owners with a shared vision can’t get it onto the County’s rollout. Subject & cause experts and advocacy groups have no defined way to be pulled in. The PFA — the body that funds all this — has convened but has not held the meetings required by its own bylaws.

Right now recovery feels like attempting to have a sip of water from eight fire hoses that are going on full blast. It’s impossible. Mike Tuccillo · Altadena resident & block captain · May 15, 2026

2Values

Seven principles guide every decision the working group makes — and every Project owner that adopts this process commits to upholding them. They are what the project is measured against.

#	Value	What it means
01	Proximity	Neighbors know what their block needs. Lived knowledge from being on the block carries weight — the closer to the place, the closer to the call. This process makes sure that knowledge lands in County decisions.
02	Local agency	People affected have a defined path to shape what gets built — not just commented on. Commercial owners and residents move from being consulted to being decision partners.
03	Co-creation	Community is not consulted on a finished proposal — it shapes the question from the start. Project owners and community members draft, revise, and decide together. Engagement is participatory architecture, not surveying.
04	Coordination	Multiple agencies, utilities, and developers converge in one process the community can follow — no more being asked the same question five times by five different project owners on five different schedules.
05	Visibility	Visibility goes both ways. Community can see what project owners are planning, deciding, and changing — plans, bid packages, design decisions, and where they deviate from stated intent. Project owners can see what the community has surfaced, decided, and prioritized. Visibility lets everyone act before it’s too late — to question, hold the line, or ground decisions in shared evidence.
06	Access to conflict resolution	Disagreement has a clear, low-cost path. When community input is rejected, when project owners and stakeholders clash, when factions within the community disagree — there is a defined way to surface, hear, and resolve it inside the process. Conflict that has no channel routes to lawsuits, social media, or exit; this process refuses that default.
07	Trauma-informed	Engagement is designed for a community that has lost a lot. Pace, format, language, and tone honor the cost. Multi-modal delivery (text · video · walking tours · languages · ADA) is non-negotiable. Trauma-informed support, in partnership with Trauma Resource Institute, EFC, Hillsides, and Dept of Mental Health, is built into captain training.

3Proposal — the five-step process

A defined process every project owner follows when working in Altadena. Five steps; the framework flows top-down (information) and bottom-up (consensus):

↓ INFORMATION FLOWS DOWN                       ↑ CONSENSUS FLOWS UP
   01 SCOPE                                   05 SHARED RECORD
   02 TRAINING & DISTRIBUTION                 04 AGGREGATION

                       ○ DELIBERATION
                       03 FACILITATING DISCUSSION

#	Step	What happens
01	Scope	Project owner defines decision within one of three scopes — A Recovery Master Plan / CIP · B Commercial corridors · C Public right-of-way & guidelines — with problem, ask, geographic area, timeline, multi-modal delivery (text · video · languages · walking tours), expert access
02	Training & Distribution	Materials route through Altagether’s 150+ block captains and the commercial-owner network; subject & cause experts pulled in by relevance
03	Facilitating Discussion	Block captains lead time-bound community deliberation at the block level
04	Aggregation	Block deliberations compile into a coherent record, organized by area and project owner’s categories. Private dialogue stays private; outcomes become public
05	Shared record	The record goes public — tracked on a dashboard, visible to all stakeholders

The three scopes (the top-level inputs at Definition):

Scope	What it covers	Status	Feedback routes to
A · Recovery Master Plan / CIP	Block-by-block infrastructure feedback into the County’s recovery plan (Jun–Jul 2026)	Mandatory — happening with or without us	Public Works / CIP team
B · Commercial corridors	Commercial property-owner input on corridor rebuild	Discretionary — contingent on owner interest	Altadena Village / commercial-owner network
C · Public right-of-way & guidelines	Sidewalks, streetscape, and shared guidelines across all of Altadena	Ongoing — open to everyone	General guidelines record

Fair Oaks Corridor (next section) is the Scope A pilot.

4What gets built (deliverables)

Five tangible things produced in the first 9 months. Each has an owner and acceptance criteria.

3.1 — Delivery guidelines (the spec)

A single document describing what every project owner must produce before community engagement begins.

Owner: Alting (Petra)

Acceptance criteria

Specifies the six required elements (problem definition, ask, geographic area, timeline, expert access, multi-modal materials)
Co-signed by CAPS, ATC, and at least one County agency
Templated so any project owner can fill it in < 2 hours

User storyAs a project owner, I want a clear spec to deliver to, so I know what community engagement looks like for my project.

3.2 — Block-captain toolkit

Pre-built facilitation guides, conversation prompts, and decision-record templates that captains can use without inventing the form each time.

Owner: CoLab (Megan)

Acceptance criteria

Facilitation guide for a 1-hour block meeting (printable + digital)
Decision-record template that captures consensus, dissent, and unresolved questions
Plain-language brief template (translates any project owner’s delivery into a 1-page summary)
All materials available in English & Spanish

User storyAs a block captain, I want pre-built guides, so I can run conversations without designing the form each time.

3.3 — Decision-record system

The structured artifact that captures what each block decided. Private dialogue, public outcome. Manual at first.

Owner: Alting (Petra) + CoLab (Gabriella)

Acceptance criteria

Records use the shared template (block, date, project owner, decision, dissent)
Stored in shared Google Drive folder per corridor
Aggregation by corridor / zone / project owner category is straightforward (manual)
No individual attribution — outcomes public, dialogue private

User storyAs a resident, I want my block’s input recorded in a way that’s traceable, so I know my voice was heard.

3.4 — Captain training program

A short, repeatable training that prepares block captains to facilitate. On-call backup so no captain is alone.

Owner: CoLab (Megan + Gabriella) with Altagether (John)

Acceptance criteria

2-hour training session: facilitation basics, trauma-informed engagement, decision-record use, Brown Act guardrails
Delivered to 30+ captains in the first cohort
On-call CoLab support during any live facilitation
Refresher loop every 6 months

User storyAs a new block captain, I want training and someone to call if it gets hard, so I’m not on my own.

3.5 — Cross-instrument dashboard

A public-facing view showing what input each project is getting, across all project owners. MVP = manually maintained; v2 = automated.

Owner: Alting (Petra) — design; build TBD

Acceptance criteria — MVP

One row per active project across CIP, EIFD, WSGVAP, Paradigm, etc.
Status per project: engagement window, decisions submitted, agency response
Updated weekly during the Fair Oaks pilot

Acceptance criteria — v2 (post-funding)

Auto-pulled from decision-record system
Public URL, no login required for viewing

User storyAs a CAPS member or resident, I want to see what input each project is getting, so we can coordinate across agencies and track follow-through.

5Who does what

Org	Role	Lead
Altadena Village	Commercial-corridor work, mobility, CIP/EIFD accuracy, planner relationships	Esther Kim
CoLab	Plain-language communication, captain training & support, Brown Act monitoring, health equity	Megan Hinchliffe Gerig · Gabriella Caparco-Robertson
Alting	Process design, decision-record system, dashboard, synthesis	Petra Wennberg
Altagether	Distribution and education through the 150+ block-captain network	John Mayo

6Vocabulary

Used consistently throughout this proposal and the deck:

Term	Definition
Project owner	The agency, utility, developer, or consultant paying for or initiating a project that affects Altadena
PFA	Public Financing Authority — the body administering EIFD/AWRIFD funds. The funding agency. Stands alone
Community	Residents, commercial owners, and anyone with a verified Altadena location
Block captain	An Altagether-trained resident facilitating deliberation on their block
Subject & cause experts	Subject-matter expertise (architects, planners, mediators) AND cause-based representation (cultural advocacy groups, environmental orgs). Pulled in by relevance, not self-selection
Partners	Organizations that help in some way — CAPS Roundtable members, ARRC, ARLA, others
Stakeholder	Anyone with a vested interest in the process — community, project owners, partners, experts

7Timeline

When	What	Lead
May 21, 2026	CAPS presentation; ask for buy-in	Gabriella (presenting), Petra (in Stockholm)
May 21 – Jun 4	Feedback & refinement window	All
Late May – Jun 30	Build out project plan · open feedback & refinement · outreach & circulation	Petra + working group
May 22 – Jun 30	ATC + Altagether ratification	Esther + John
Jun – Sep 2026	Delivery guidelines + captain toolkit built	Petra, Megan
Jul – Dec 2026	EIFD advocacy at PFA hearings	All
Mid-Aug – Nov 2026	Captain training cohorts (kick-off after Petra returns Aug 9)	Megan, Gabriella, John
Sep 2026 – Jun 2027	Fair Oaks pilot — hand-hacked live use case	All
Mar – Aug 2027	Dashboard MVP build	Petra (design lead)
Apr – Jul 2027	Iterate from pilot learnings	All
Jul 2027 →	Scale to additional corridors	All

8Cost

Three pockets — honest about who pays for what:

Source	What it funds
Project owner budgets	Each project owner pays for its own delivery to the guidelines. Normal cost of public infrastructure or development work
EIFD via PFA	The EIFD (Altadena Wildfire Recovery Infrastructure Financing District, AWRIFD) — a small fraction of the $2B financing layer funds the engagement infrastructure: delivery guidelines, captain toolkit, decision-record system, dashboard, mediation
Local hires	Community-side professionals (facilitators, mediators, legal, translators) — paid via EIFD + external grants (Annenberg, Emerson, Omidyar lanes). Local-first so dollars recirculate inside Altadena

CAPS is not asked to fund any of this. CAPS buy-in is what moves EIFD toward an actual earmark.

9Success criteria

How we’ll know this worked:

Metric	Year-1 target
Project owners meeting the delivery guidelines	At least 3 (CIP + 2 others)
Active block captains using the toolkit	50+ captains, 30+ blocks
Decision records submitted	1 corridor (Fair Oaks) end-to-end
Dashboard MVP live	By Q3 2027
EIFD line item secured	Engagement-infrastructure earmark adopted at a PFA meeting
Community survey	>60% of participating residents say their input shaped the outcome
Fair Oaks pilot reach	Process reaches 30%+ of residents who didn’t attend prior rebuild engagement

10The ask

For CAPS — Thursday May 21

Community endorsement — carry it forward.

We’re not asking for approval — the working group is moving with or without buy-in. We’re asking the coalition gathered at CAPS to take this up:

Community endorsement of the framework where it fits your org
Carry it forward into your constituency and the conversations you’re already in
Convene the right voices when this lands at ATC and the PFA

This is a coalition framework. It’s stronger with your name on it.

+Appendices

A — Partners (CAPS Roundtable coalition)

Altadena Bloom · Altadena Chamber of Commerce · Altadena Collective · Altadena Green · Altadena Heritage · Altadena Town Council · ARRC · CCAR · Dena Hive · League of Women Voters · Neighbors Building a Better Altadena · NOMA · PUSD School Board · Steadfast · WRTT

B — Subject & cause experts (worked through during pilot)

Domain	Example orgs
Architecture & planning	NOMA, Altadena Village Partners, ArtCenter College of Design
Heritage & cultural memory	Altadena Heritage, Black cultural advocacy groups (to identify)
Ecology & watersheds	Altadena Green, TreePeople, Reimagining our Watersheds, AIR
Health & equity	Denas Just Futures, Altadena CoLab
Mental health & trauma-informed support	Trauma Resource Institute (Megan & Gabby certified), EFC, Hillsides, Dept of Mental Health
Civic & governance	League of Women Voters, CCAR, ARRC
Business & commerce	Altadena Chamber of Commerce, commercial-owner network

C — Project owners expected to engage

LA County: Public Works (CIP) · Regional Planning (WSGVAP) · Sanitation · Flood Control · Fire · Parks & Recreation

Utilities: Edison/SCE · SoCalGas · Las Flores Water · Lincoln Avenue Water · Rubio Cañon Land & Water · Foothill Municipal Water

Other: PUSD · Paradigm (Edison’s outreach consultant) · Toole Design (County’s planning consultant) · private commercial developers

D — Scope (what’s NOT in v1)

Out of scope (for v1)	Why
Native mobile app for captains	Browser + Google Docs is enough for v1
AI transcription / summarization	Manual notes during pilot; automate later
Translation beyond English & Spanish	Spanish covers ~90% of non-English speakers in Altadena; add as needed
Automated routing of input to agencies	Manual hand-off during pilot; automate after pattern stabilizes
Real-time public dashboard	MVP is weekly-updated; real-time = post-funding
Federation with other LA County rebuild work (e.g., Palisades)	Stay focused on Altadena; federation when pattern is proven