About this plan

Implementation and rollout

Adopting the Plan is the first step. Full implementation across all county departments will take time, intentional training, and sustained accountability — realistically, an 18 to 24 month journey from Board adoption.

What full implementation means

Every staff member who initiates or manages public-facing projects uses the Engagement Assessment and Plan, publishes an Influence Statement, and closes the loop after every engagement effort. The seven required steps become a habit, not a checklist pulled out for audits.

Setting realistic expectations

Not every department will implement at the same pace. Departments with large public-facing portfolios, including HHS, Public Works, CDA, and Parks, will likely move faster because the need is immediate. The metric for success at 18 months isn't perfection — it's a meaningful shift: more Engagement Assessment and Plans filed, more Influence Statements published, more What We Heard reports closed. OCE Communications will report on implementation progress annually to the County Executive, with a summary available to the Board upon request.

High-conflict and controversial issues

Dedicated guidance on high-conflict engagement design will be developed during Phase Two of this Plan's rollout — when to bring in external facilitation, how to sequence engagement to reduce polarization, and how to maintain credibility when decisions are unpopular.

Citations and resources

Data citations

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2019–2023 5-Year Estimates, Table B19081, Marin County, California.
• Rooted in Marin, “Why This Matters.” Also see: U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.
• Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics, U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies, 2022.
• Marin Transit, 2023 Title VI Program Update, Adopted June 2023.
• U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

Additional resources

• IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation: iap2.org
• Institute for Local Government (ILG) Sample Public Engagement RFPs/RFQs: ca-ilg.org
• Language Access Hub: LanguageAccess@MarinCounty.gov
• IST Broadcast Team (virtual meeting support): contact via county intranet
• OCE Communications Division: engagement plan review, consultant referrals, training
• Office of Equity: equity-centered engagement design support
• Clerk of the Board: any engagement involving advisory bodies, commissions, or working groups

Editor's note

Public engagement gives communities a genuine opportunity to shape decisions before they're made. Strategic communication shares what's already been decided. Both are essential to how the county shows up for the people it serves, and doing each one well starts with being honest about which one you're doing.

Relationships are what make the difference between engagement that works and engagement that doesn't. The counties and communities that get this right aren't the ones with the best tools or the most meetings — they're the ones that show up consistently, tell the truth about what's open to input and what isn't, and recognize that the people closest to a problem usually understand it better than we do.

Every tool and template in this Plan exists to support that work, but it isn't comprehensive. Real engagement is too context-dependent for any document to fully capture. Phase Two brings county staff together to examine what we're doing across departments and surface what's missing. Phase Three takes the work directly into the community. Use what's here, push back when something doesn't fit, share what you learn about community, and close the loop.

Yours in community,
Laine Hendricks
Director of Countywide Communication