Hello, I'm April Chatham carpenter, and I'm Glen white.

Welcome back to a braver Arkansas.

And if you're joining us for the first time, welcome.

Over the last several episodes, we've been talking about civic renewal, what it looks like for communities to move beyond polarization and begin solving real problems together.

We've talked about leadership, collaboration, and the importance of bringing more voices into the conversation.

Today, we want to take that conversation a step further, because even when people agree that communities need to work together better, a big question remains what does it actually look like in practice?

Our guest today is Steve Salt.

He's with Brave Angels citizens led solutions initiative.

Steve is helping communities across the country explore this different citizen led solutions model.

That's one where citizens don't simply wait for institutions to solve problems for them, but work together to build solutions themselves.

We're really looking forward to that conversation.

Steve's a great friend of mine.

A good civic friendship that I've developed in Braver Angels.

But first, Glenn, what's on your mind?

Well, I'm just the thing that's often on my mind is how stuck we are in this country.

So many people are worried about what's happening in their community and their country.

We have all this just distrust, gridlock with the government and just a lot of difficulty, public distrust.

So people are wanting it, feeling very frustrated with it.

They're discouraged.

They kind of feel powerless, actually.

And you know, when you get like that, you feel like things are out of your control.

There's nothing you can do.

And that's kind of a bad recipe for any kind of mental health situation.

It's certainly bad for a democracy.

So unfortunately, what people are doing there either getting really angry and not being terribly productive and helpful in the process, or they're doing the opposite.

They're withdrawing, they're disengaging, and they're just kind of throwing up their hands and say, well, let the politicians deal with it.

So why do you think that we kind of go to those two different possible solutions that becoming angry and reactive or disengaging completely?

You know, both of those things actually.

Whenever I've done either one of those things, I, I feel worse, I feel more powerless.

And I, I feel like I lose my sense of of agency and the ability to act.

Yeah.

Well, that loss of a sense of agency really is important.

It's really critical for democratic form of government like we do, because when you get the feeling like you have no influence and nothing you do matters, you do get to those two things.

Either angry and strike out or withdrawal.

Now you ask kind of where that comes from.

I think that's a very emotional reaction.

It's part of our fight or flight response that any time we feel something is threatening to us, we tend to be.

Either, ready to fight or to flee from it.

And that's where we get the kind of the argument and the hostility on the one hand, and withdrawal and disengagement on the other.

So that is not a good, healthy place to be.

We need people to understand that ordinary citizens, what they do really does matter.

Changes only happen.

When we're all working together.

Not just when the institutions and the government officials and the agencies work.

Yeah, they have an important role to play.

But our our founders said from the start.

We need the citizens engaged.

They need to educate themselves and know what the issues are, and they need to be part of the solution.

They need to be part of the governmental process.

And that goes beyond just voting.

I, I think about if all of us can look at the communities in which we grew up, whether it be a small community or a large community, there are probably things that have changed over time.

And I wonder how many of those things that have changed over time in a community that our viewers might have grown up in, actually were citizen led things, not just top down from like the mayor or the city council, but actually citizens brought them up or even think about, you know, schools or in your local church where you might say something, there's something that's kind of bothering you or something that you would like to have changed.

We don't have to just sit back and complain about it.

You know, over, over Sunday dinner, we can actually potentially talk to someone and see if we can come up with some possibility for change.

But it takes some kind of model.

I think that or some kind of strategy to be able to do that for, at least for me to feel comfortable doing that.

Otherwise I feel like, well, gosh, I just, I just complain, but nothing ever happens.

And that's actually something that we're going to be learning about today.

You know, we don't have to wait.

We can actually do something to improve as our our communities and our neighborhoods and, you know, our local groups that were a part of.

Well, you raised the question initially, and I found that an interesting question.

Do you think there was more direct local involvement in the past than now or or about the same?

What do you think?

You know, I think as I grew up in Conway.

So I'll just have to say that when I first came to Conway, it was a relatively small community.

And there were I felt like a lot more opportunities for citizens to have maybe what some people would call direct democracy, where they actually could play a part in a small community.

I feel like sometimes we have more ability to do that.

As it's gotten larger, I don't live in Conway anymore, but as it's gotten larger, sometimes it's harder for us to see how we can play a part, except in small local groups or things that we're passionate about to make a difference.

And so I do think that as communities grow, the the likelihood of people just sitting back in, assuming somebody else is going to take care of it increases.

But I'll give you an example.

Right now we have and it doesn't have to just be a community.

It can be a situation in which people are feeling like they're not being heard.

You know, whether it be something being built in your backyard, like a data center or a prison.

And so, you know, what happens in those moments?

Do you just sit and let those, those things come in, or do you actually gather some people around you, which we've seen actually happen in a couple of places in Arkansas, and probably even more if we would look at them, you know, where citizens actually will stand up and say with somebody else, can I talk?

Do you feel the same way?

Do you feel the same way?

Can can we actually get together and and do something about about an issue?

And sometimes that can be so powerful that it ends up changing the direction of policy that might be coming at us from above.

Yeah.

What you're talking about has been called Nimby in I am B. What what reminds me of my backyard?

Oh, not in my backyard.

Yeah, that's what the Nimby refers to.

So, like, it's the kind of thing that at a local level, a lot of times people aren't involved or interested until it affects them personally.

And that's where the whole Nimby idea comes.

But the important thing is that in any community, regardless if it says you're right, smaller makes it more likely to be a part of the community and actions.

But regardless of the size, it's really imperative that the community be involved and community members do what they can so that they can, you know, talk with each other, come from a place of good faith, and be able to negotiate and come up with some solutions so that that's critical.

Yeah.

So knowing how to do that is really important.

And I came across this, this model that our guest today is going to be presenting in Braver Angels actually.

And it it came as a result of a lot of the work in Braver Angels has been about skill building.

It's been about how to speak and listen to each other, which is such an important part of what we do in Braver Angels, because if we can't build trust and relationships, or if we consider the other person as an enemy, then we're not going to talk to them.

So it's really important to have the skill building, listening and speaking conversations.

But there was a group of people, and Steve, who was going to be our guest here in a little bit, was one of these people that said, it's not enough just to be building skills.

We need to be going out and doing action together.

Once we kind of have built the relationships, what can we be doing now to actually do something in our own communities together?

And so he'll be telling some stories about the citizens that got together.

They quit seeing themselves as spectators.

They actually saw themselves as as critics, as action oriented people, problem solvers.

And they started asking, what if we work together to come up with solutions?

Yeah.

And one of the things that probably gets in the way sometimes of people doing that is because they know they're going to be disagreements, and that makes some people uncomfortable.

But as we've said before on this program, disagreements are okay.

They're actually an important source of information for us.

So if we can deal with that initial discomfort and just listen to the people sincerely to try to understand where they're coming from, we wind up coming up with more information that can help us figure out how we're going to work together to solve that problem we have in our community.

A lot of times, though, that even the methods of trying to get our voice heard or not are not, extremely.

Useful.

I'll just give you an example.

So if you're at a city council meeting and you're expressing your point of view and everybody's shouting at each other.

Or if you're at a school board meeting and you're given like one minute each to talk and you know, and they're not, you could tell just even by the non-verbal of the school board or the city council is not really listening to you.

It can bring you back to that point of, oh, gosh, I'm powerless again.

Or you know, what can I do?

And so I'm, I'm curious, you know, in Arkansas in particular, Glenn, if you've seen any models, particularly where we might be able to actually think about having the conversation in a different way, and I think about as an example of that, the The Braver Angels model of a single issue workshop where we're doing common ground, we're looking for common ground and how we're looking for shared values and, and shared concerns before we even look at policies that we might, could potentially be able to to, you know, embrace together.

I'm thinking of one thing we did a couple of years ago, civil Conversations.

We called it I think we we've got them going elsewhere in the state now called community conversations.

And it's the kind of thing that can help people get over their fear of disagreement and the discomfort that comes with that, because you had basically a different topic each month and people coming in to talk about the topic and share their perspectives.

We did have some guidelines, and we had moderators to keep them following those guidelines, but it really wound up being better than I ever imagined.

And there were none of the major problems you might expect when people on the red and the blue sides were talking about the same issue.

So it worked out really well.

That's another example to me of of that kind of community based about the work.

I know of a person that works with braver angels, but he also is a faculty member at Colorado State, and he he works with the community in Fort Collins to come up with specific issues.

And they bring together a whole lot of people from across the community that are impacted.

So what some people would call stakeholders, so the individual people that are are stakeholders and and everyday people, and they break them up into groups and talk about what the problem is.

They talk about what their concerns are.

Then they all talk about and kind of get those concerns up on, on whiteboards, and they'll be able to kind of take a look at, see what.

So, you know, large group of people actually looking at what the problem and concerns are and what the causes might be before they ever start talking about solutions.

And that is such a different kind of model, more of a town hall, maybe feel sometimes than than going and just shouting for a minute or two at a city council meeting or a school board meeting.

So I think sometimes we need to change our processes that we have.

For even hearing the voices of people could be the main thing I would say.

I would encourage people to, when they feel that discomfort initially and say, no, I better not do that.

I better not go to that event because it might get messy.

It it almost never winds up being as bad as you think it one's up being actually people when they get together.

It's not like social media.

They want it being much more civil.

They they keep it between the ditches, as it were, as I like to say.

So that emotional voids that we kind of get into, don't let that get in the way.

It's going to be a lot better than you think.

So I would encourage people to get involved.

So even though in Arkansas we have real political differences, we have cultural differences, we have social differences, we have rural differences.

We also have strong communities.

We have strong relationships.

We have a long tradition of people stepping up to help solve problems.

And that's exactly what we're going to explore today with Steve Salt, what's working around the country that he's seeing and what our communities learning.

And what might Arkansas be able to learn from those examples.

So let's take a break here and bring Steve in, and then we'll get some ideas from him.

On how this citizen led solutions model might actually work.

Sounds great.

Well, Steve saw it.

It's good to see you, man.

I'm glad to have you here.

People who are our viewers don't know that.

You and I have had a relationship for braver angels and braver angels for quite a while.

But we're really glad to have you.

I'm glad to be here.

All right, well, I would like to just start out with just a little bit more about how you got into the work of Democratic Renewal, braver angels.

Anything you'd like to tell us about getting into that work?

Well, sure.

I mean, the, the quick history of of Steve Solich is I started my career as a neuroscientist.

I studied the way the brain learned things.

I learned a lot about the brain, learned a lot about bunny rabbits, which was the subject I was doing.

And I also learned that I like computers a lot more than bunny rabbits.

I mean, for example, they don't poop on you.

And then so I did the computer thing.

I voted typically Republicans or I'm a conservative or a red wear blue in honor of my, you know, angel fashion.

My liberal and independent friends and all that.

But I wasn't really active in politics.

The 2016 election was an inflection point for me.

I mean, my children were just devastated.

I lost friends over talking about politics, and I decided, you know, this is not a good direction for the country.

So I found Braver Angels and did a variety of things.

I founded the local chapter here in Austin, Texas, where I live.

I did some national jobs and all of that.

And then I, I'm part of the team that developed this thing called citizen led solutions, which we'll talk about.

But but I just found that amazing in terms of extending the braver Angel mission, if you will, from deliberation and learning about each other and being respectful with each other to collaborative action to action, so that that's really what the name of the game is for me is action on top of deliberation.

So in a nutshell, I know we're going to get into the details, but what is citizen led solutions?

Yeah, that's a that's a good one right.

So citizen led solutions amazingly is when citizens lead in a solution and they work to make their community better.

And a good example just a quick example on that would be think about a town hall or city council meeting you've seen lately that was contentious.

Usually there's people at a microphone monopolizing that microphone.

There's a lot of negative energy in the room.

There could be shouting, and I mean, there could be physical interactions and all of that.

And this is talking to some set of people on a raise.

Diaz.

That is the government and is going to do something right.

A citizen led solution could be is exactly the opposite.

So it's small groups of citizens getting together and talking to one another and realizing they have common values, that they have common issues they're trying to solve in the community, and then figuring out that, hey, we could work together and actually solve some of these problems, right?

Just like they did when America was founded 250 years ago.

So.

So that's what I mean.

Sorry if that was a long answer.

Well that's good.

Thank you for the introduction.

Yeah.

Steve.

One thing I appreciate from, citizen led solutions when it started.

It's a fairly recent thing.

And I love the fact that we're not just talking about polarization, which is something we've done a lot in Braver Angels the whole time.

We've also talked about skills on how to handle that and how to do better.

Those are all great things, but I love the evolution into having citizen led solutions because now you've got people actually doing things, getting in the community and doing things.

So what kind of gap do you think the citizen led solutions approach is trying to feel at this point?

Well, I mean, the the point about citizen led solutions, I think, is to revitalize a, a, a kind of way that Americans acted at the founding of our country.

Right?

It was we the people and we the people solved problems.

Right.

And and I do think there's a crisis in confidence, right?

That that people in general field government is not working for them.

You know, that many communities are really beset by problems locally and nationally and all that.

And it's like, wait a minute, things are not working the way, you know, they ought to.

And I think the point that or the gap that citizen led solution stands for is, you know, that we the people have got to do the we the people stuff.

It's up to us to solve many of our local problems and it can be done.

I mean, it absolutely can be done because when we the people can't do We the people stuff, then the American experiment is under threat.

And I would hate to see that because I love living in this country and I love America.

So all of us need to get together and be and and begin to do that.

And and I appreciate you saying and pointing out that this was what the founders of the country had in mind, that it's going to take everybody pitching in.

So thank you for sharing that.

You know, and if I could, Glenn.

Right.

It's not just the founders, right.

There are many examples from the civil rights movement and all of that.

Right?

I mean, we can learn an awful lot from the way that the civil rights movement did Freedom Schools or, you know, other kinds of of institutions that really motivated and capitalized on the work of citizens, you know, members of America to, to do these kind of things.

So it's not just the founders, it's also the civil rights era and other kinds of things that show that Americans really can do this.

Yeah.

So you talk about the crisis of confidence.

You mentioned the confidence in our in our government.

But I think we also have a crisis of confidence in terms of our relationships with each other, in terms of even our ourselves as citizens, potentially even to see ourselves as as even being able to make a difference.

Anything more that you've thought about in terms of the crisis, that how that affects whether citizens are willing to even engage in these kinds of work, this kind of work.

Yeah.

I mean, one thing I would bring out is that there's several levels of challenges in America today.

I mean, if you look at Congress in the United States, in DC, highly partizan Congress and many people's opinion is, you know, barely functional, because the national issues are so intractable in all of that.

Right?

So, so one thing, and I'll talk about this later on in the program, is that I think we're citizens, can really make a mark today is focusing on local issues, things that are solvable within their own community and not get seduced by, you know, national issues, taking over the stage of getting some pretty practical solutions done in their community.

And and, you know, we have a model for that incidents and LED solutions.

It's a pretty simple model to follow.

But by showing we can succeed or a community can succeed in solving a local problem, then they build, you know, kind of momentum to solve larger problems, perhaps at the state level, and then ultimately to solve these national things.

Not that we shouldn't pay attention to national things, but I think we lose sight sometimes of the incredible impact that individual small groups of citizens can have on their community in terms of solving issues and making it for the better.

You know, I know one of the stories that often hear you tell as an illustration of this, is a simple well, it seems simple in terms of solving a local problem.

It was a stop sign in a community.

And and that was an example of a citizen led solution, right?

I mean, people were upset about.

Tell us a little bit about that stop sign story and then we'll get to the upset.

I mean, they were incensed, right?

I mean, there there was physical violence over this.

Right?

And it's a small town in upstate New York.

Old time residents had a market in the center of town.

They were very pleased about that.

It was the center of business activity and new residents who were moving in.

You know, we're concerned about traffic at this intersection.

And so there was a huge blow up.

I mean, this has been going on for years, right?

And and they never could make progress when they went to the city council chambers and said, we got to do something on this.

It was the standard food fight at a city council meeting.

So some braver angel members use citizen led solution techniques.

You know, we have this model, and then move the discussion out of the city council chambers into a local, forum, the local fire department.

Right.

And did small group solutions, small group discussions and deliberations on what could be done.

And lo and behold, what came out of that discussion is, well, why don't we put a stop sign and a crosswalk in this intersection, right?

And because the citizens had taken on this thing and they had come up with this solution, all of a sudden the city council was willing to do it.

They put in the stop sign, and the crosswalk business still was good at the farmer, you know, at this center kind of thing.

And the new residents thought, you know, the intersection was a lot safer.

So it sounds like a trivial example, but it's a great example of showing how citizens can take the lead.

Right?

Working with government.

Working with government.

Right.

But to solve a problem that had really ridden this community over, you know, there were stop sign guys and anti stop sign guys, right.

And and they were getting to physical blows over this.

Right.

So that's an example of where a seemingly simple thing can show you democracy works again.

Okay.

Well it's time.

We probably should get into the model.

I know I've heard you talk about this model of three phases in it, and I think it's fostering relationships, forging common ground and then doing some kind of follow through.

So three FS there.

I'd love for you to walk us through what happens.

Sure, sure.

It's it's often the case that citizens, you know, that have a community citizens and the community, you know, they they say this sounds great.

You know, what do we do?

Right.

And there's three phases as April.

Just say fostering relationships, forging solutions, and following through the action.

All too often everybody gets excited about this and they want to jump into.

Well, let's forge a solution, right?

You shouldn't do that.

Fostering your relationships is the first thing that a community ought to do.

And by that, what I mean is usually there's a couple of people that are champions for doing something.

They have fire in the belly about getting something done, either solving this issue or maybe making the community better in general kind of stuff.

And, and those champions need to get together, get to know one another, and then recruit a slightly larger team of all the diverse viewpoints within the community.

Like it could be I want to stop sign.

I don't want to stop sign.

And also the people that say I haven't made up my mind yet, I mean, I, you know, I need to talk about this.

So get all these perspectives together.

And then they learn to they learn who they are and they build some trust from that trust.

You can now have a community gathering like a town hall or something like that, where you talk about these issues.

And what we have found is as people get to know one another, then issues come to the surface.

It might not be the first issue that the champions talked about, but it could be, you know, something that really engages the community.

And the big thing here is that when you start to talk about forging a solution, you want to make sure you're talking about something that's doable and solvable.

Everyone wants global peace, right?

I want global peace.

Everybody in your viewing audience wants global peace.

That's not an issue to pick, right?

A stop sign or bike lanes or e-scooters running people over downtown or, you know, those kind of things.

Pick a pick a relatively simple issue that engages the community and that you can do something about, and then forge a solution for that.

And then the final stage, and this is the one that is also forgotten a bit.

Sometimes when you forge a solution, and let's suppose you present it to the city council and all that, everybody goes, yep, we want to do something about that.

And then everybody goes home and they forget about it.

No, you need continued engagement for nudging people along to make sure that the stop sign actually gets planted in some at the Main Street intersection, or there's something put up that say e-scooters aren't allowed on the sidewalk downtown or whatever it is.

Right?

So you foster relationships, you forge a solution with common ground, with a diverse set of perspectives, and then you follow through by nudging everybody to make sure something actually happens.

Excellent explanation.

I appreciate that, Steve.

Now, what you're talking about then is you come up with this problem and you forge a solution, you follow through, you get it done.

But from what I have heard so far about this, and I think this this particular idea was talked about a lot at the national convention.

From the videos I saw, there's this concept of building civic muscle.

So I want you to tell us a little more about what in the world building civic muscle means.

Well, I'll I'll tell you what it means from the program perspective.

And then if we have a chance to talk about a few funny and surprising things, we'll talk about a little bit more later.

Right.

But building civic muscle means that after you've been through one cycle of this, foster, forge and follow through example, and let's suppose you've had a success, right?

This this has happened.

You've made your community better.

Well, then the idea is do it again.

Rinse and repeat.

Because if you've done it once, you can do it again.

And if you've done it once on a really simple thing, maybe you can do something a little more complex.

So you're building your civic muscle to handle, you know, more problems in the community.

And this becomes like an honored norm of the way you solve these problems.

We're not yelling and screaming at everybody in a city council meeting.

We're getting this gether.

Citizens leading this with government, right to solve a range of problems.

And the more problems you solve, the more civic muscle you build.

And the more people that do that, they start to develop an understanding of how the system works locally.

And then they not only gained the competence in doing that, they gained confidence that, hey, we can get some stuff done here locally.

That's that's a great example.

Absolutely, Glenn.

Absolutely.

They see the results of this in their community, right.

All of a sudden, you know, there's a dog park where dogs used to run off leash or something like that, right?

Or, you know, little old ladies aren't getting run over by e-scooters or, you know, that kind of business.

And that gives people a tangible feeling that the way the country was founded with town halls in the northeast, where some of the stuff that the civil rights movement done, and there were several other examples, you know, that this this improves your community.

It has impact.

There's a reason to invest your energy into it.

And that's a really thrilling thing.

Well I know you mentioned the stop sign story.

Is there another example of a community that's gone through this that you really, you know, you've seen them build relationships to finding that common ground and, and the following through.

Yeah.

I mean let me give you one from the in different part of the country and all that.

This is the new Jersey public schools.

The new Jersey public schools are heavily unionized.

Typically the relationship between teachers and the administration and public schools in new Jersey is a bit adversarial.

I mean, as you might expect, and a couple of the people that work on CLS decided to take this model, right, and to work with forging relationships across teachers and principals and boards and parents and all of that.

Right.

They then came together and said, look, we have a common value of we want our student outcomes to improve, right?

Everybody involved in this wanted better education for their kids, right.

And so they created this environment of of teachers talking to teachers and principals, talking to principals and all of that focused on this kind of outcome where, you know, it was the the citizens and these were citizen professionals, right?

So these were citizen teachers, citizen, you know, principals, all that kind of stuff.

And they got together and they decided we were going to do something about that.

Right now, this thing covers about half the public schools in new Jersey.

Student outcomes are materially better.

And one of the civic muscle things.

Right.

And this is the way I do civic muscle, by the way.

You got to show your muscles, the civic muscle on this thing is that it's peer to peer.

So, so the teachers are helping other teachers solve these problems, and a teacher is going to listen to another teacher far more than someone else that's just going to crashing the party here.

Right.

And principles are talking to principals.

Districts in the north part of the state are talking to districts in the south part of the state.

So so what we find is really exciting about this is that after you kind of get a core, a critical mass of these things, right, then all of a sudden their participants start talking to one another and you get a real momentum, a movement, if you will, to do this thing on a given kind of issue across something like new Jersey is a pretty populated state, right?

So that's pretty cool to deal with this in the public schools.

So charter schools are not the only answer, and they're a good answer in several situations.

But here's where people within the public school system got together and they wanted to do something.

And it's been really, really effective.

Great example.

So you mentioned earlier that you might get to some amusing example maybe.

Is this a good time?

Could you do that?

Yeah, we could do that.

We can talk about amusing and surprising, right?

I mean, yeah, one thing, Glenn, you mentioned we just had our national convention for Braver Angels in Philadelphia, which was fantastic.

It's the 250th anniversary of America.

And we were there at the, you know, the site of the Liberty Bell and the the Independence Hall and all that kind of stuff.

And we presented several sessions on citizen led solutions.

And somebody just on their own did the whole, well, I'm building civic muscle here, you know, and they had much bigger muscles than I did.

But but but it became this thing like of people, you know, doing I'm building my muscle and that kind of stuff.

And it really it was, it was really pretty cool how all of that happened.

Right.

The surprising thing I might share with your viewers is there's another example we have where some parents at a high school in Tennessee, and I grew up in Memphis.

Right.

So please forgive me for all your Arkansas guys from growing up in Tennessee and from around.

I mean, that's a double whammy around the state, you know?

And I used to go boys town river rafting in Arkansas.

It was beautiful.

It's a beautiful state.

But the, the this was around Nashville, right?

And they wanted to start school later.

Right?

They are teenagers.

Need more sleep.

Right?

So they got a diverse group of parents and teachers and administrators together.

And they said, we want to start school later.

And they got a head of steam on this, and they actually implemented the solution.

And the solution was to start school 20 minutes later.

Now you might think, who the heck cares about starting school 20 minutes later?

But I will tell you, this group went to a senior session of something.

It was in the high school gym and all that kind of stuff, right?

And when it was announced, this is the group of people that got you a 20 minute, you know, start school later kind of thing.

They got a standing ovation from the entire student body.

Wow.

Right.

So, you know, you can't think of these things as 20 minutes.

This is a trivial thing.

It doesn't matter.

It matters a lot, you know?

And so that's the power of dealing with local issues that are solvable, that something can be done.

And even though it might sound like it's not a big deal, boy, when you actually show the system works, you've got a standing ovation.

And that was cool.

It's interesting, one concept you brought up earlier which which this reminds me of two is the citizen professional.

And I know one of the people that worked on that was a sleep doctor.

Right.

She's part of Braver Angels.

And so, I mean, that's an example of her using her her own skill sets, but also to help work on the research and look at the research, but also the parents were coming from, although that you might not call that to be a professional, it's not a paid job.

Maybe it should be, but but the parents were also being a part of this and the students being a part.

Yeah, yeah.

The key thing here is the the citizen professional, the sleep doctor professional who's also a member of Braver Angels.

Right.

But if she had just been asleep, doctor trying to tell the school we need to start later, she would have gotten nowhere.

The what she did.

And that is highly aligned with the angel principles and citizen led solutions, is she recruited a diverse set of people.

Right?

Parents, the principal of the school, the school bus drivers.

Right.

That kind of stuff.

And got a common ground agreement that, yes, indeed.

You know, it would be helpful to our students to start later.

It then got to and there was general agreement on that.

That's a common value.

Then it was well, how much later could we get.

And and the answer turned out to be 20 minutes.

Right.

But the point is that 20 minutes just resoundingly was, you know, approved by the school.

It showed that, you know, things like this could make a difference, right?

And, you know, so that's cool.

I mean, I think I find that very, very cool.

So I keep thinking, Glenn, how what we might do in Arkansas.

Right?

I mean, this is this is really what we're in our show Arkansas is about is is to try to get people motivated.

And the one one of our, our persons talked about it as, as civic imagination to improve our civic imagination about things that could be done.

And I know you haven't lived in Arkansas, so this is might not be a fair question, Steve, but I wonder what we as Arkansans can do in terms of these kinds of things.

I mean, what kinds of things might be local issues that might be affecting us?

I can give you a general overview, if that's okay.

April.

All right.

So, what we're finding in many of the communities we work in and, and, and I think that oftentimes the, the communities that are relatively small, small to medium city, so 5000 people or about, you know, maybe up to 50, 60, 70,000 people, something like that, they will tend to have a small, at least a small city government, maybe a little bit of a planning department and something like that.

But the community itself is very engaged with what is the local government doing and all that.

And, and everybody tends to know one another kind of, sort of whether they like each other or not is a different question.

Right?

And what we find in our early, instances of citizen led solution is oftentimes in cities like that, there is something I would call municipal friction.

So here's something that city council is trying to deal with some kind of problem.

It could be a zoning problem, historical preservation, or are we going to allow growth to happen here versus there?

It could be updating the city charter.

You know, we have a Di chapter in the city charter.

Are we going to keep it, change it, whatever.

But but oftentimes this will then come out to public comments.

And the public comments will be just hundreds right where we're before they just got a few.

What we have found and we have case studies on this, right, is that when you use brave or angel and citizen led solution techniques on these instances of municipal friction, you know, you can you can make for more progress doing this kind of stuff than just having screaming matches at city council meetings.

Now, the specifics for Arkansas, I don't know.

You guys would be much more expert on that.

But but I would encourage your viewers, especially viewers that live in, you know, small to medium kind of towns to think about.

Is there an item of municipal friction in your community and then think about you want to be a champion to begin to try to to solve this.

Right.

And and by starting with an issue, you may not wind up there when you when you get a diverse set of perspectives on there, there might be a better issue to work on.

Right.

But, but, but but I think that's a great place to start because we've found that no shortage of municipal friction.

And this is a technique to begin to solve one of those items that is important to the community.

Okay, Steve, we're getting pretty tight on time.

So a little quick two parter for you.

First, is there anything in particular you know of that people can get stuck on when they're trying to use this citizens lead solution?

And then also be sure to let people know how they can learn more about Susan led solutions.

Yeah, what we'll do and hopefully we can get an overlay for that.

I'll work with you.

Is that there is a part of the website that gives you more information on citizen led solutions.

You don't need to be a member of Braver Angels to access it.

And in particular, you'll find some videos of the case studies I talked about on this broadcast there.

There's 8 to 10 minutes long.

So they're not that long.

They're not slick marketing productions.

They're how two kinds of productions of people that were actually doing work and what happened and what did they do and all that kind of stuff.

So.

So what I would encourage your viewers to do is access that landing page, will make sure that people, your viewers know how to get there, navigate down to the the videos and watch a video or two.

I think you'll find it inspirational and I think you'll find it helpful.

Well, Steve, we really have appreciated learning more and having you share some stories with us today.

Any last thoughts you want to leave our viewers with?

Well, I'm just pleased.

Despite that, as a guy that grew up in Tennessee and lives in Texas, I was welcomed with our Kansas.

Or however you say that word spirit of welcome.

And I wish the viewers, you know, good luck and, you know, good solving with citizen led solutions.

Thank you so much.

And by the way, Arkansans is correct.

Although there's a minority that claims it's Arkansas years.

Oh, stop.

That's what we are.

We pronounce our state Arkansas.

I know, I know, that's why they claim.

But anyway, that's a whole nother deal.

We're not I mean, obviously the correct term is Arkansans, right.

So.

Oh well, I can sense.

Right.

We're going to have to use Braver Angels techniques to solve this dilemma here.

Why don't we just say Texas?

I'm in Texas.

I'm not getting into this.

Okay.

Thank you again, Steve.

You so much.

Steve, when we come back, we're going to talk about what we found out from Steve and what it meant to us.

And maybe we'll solve that problem about Arkansas.

Arkansans versus Arkansas.

Who knows?

All right.

Sounds good.

Well, Glen, that was a great conversation with many good ideas with Steve.

What were some of your takeaways?

Well, the first part is I just, you know, Steve knows his stuff and he does a good job of explaining things.

And it was a lot of fun too.

I enjoyed having that part.

Sometimes we can be a little serious on here, so it's nice to have the little lighter touch from time to time.

But, one of the things I was thinking about was how much people don't realize generally the potential power they have if they get together in their community.

And so he gave us an idea of how to take that power and to use it.

And that's not to put down or exclude the importance of the local, state and national, you know, officials.

But, you know, we're a part of this to the, the idea of this constitutional republic.

It was meant to be that the citizen was a participant.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

So that was one of the thoughts I had.

Yeah.

Well that's interesting.

I, I never have done a deep dive in studying of the history in terms of when you've talked about that.

And Steve brought that up, too, in terms of what our founding fathers really wanted this to be.

And we the people, it made me think about We the people, we really do have rights to be able to actually do this kind of work and taking responsibility to to do it, I think is something for us to think about.

Yeah.

And he made the point that, you know, hey, look like the civil rights movement, that was an example of exercising what we call civic muscle, that, you know, that people got on their own at the local level and the people, not the parties, not the politicians, and they made things happen because it was important and they got together and had a plan and they took action on it.

You know, the history of our nation is really full of this.

I mean, think about Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

I think about even Alcoholics Anonymous.

I mean, these, these were started by, by everyday people.

And although those were large things that, that, you know, took root and, and kind of flew across the, the nation and have taken up a root in many different places, many of the good initiatives and a lot of the even, you know, social service nonprofits have been started by by individual people who saw a need.

So I think I think about the people that do that kind of work.

One of the things that really hit me is the whole idea of citizen professional.

And I heard Bill Dougherty, who's one of the founders of angels, talk about this.

He's a he's a therapist and also a professor.

And so he talks about that even in his own community in Minneapolis, where he lives, when like when the George Floyd incident happened, that he actually had some interactions with the police and with the black community there to try to build relationships between them, because there was a lot of trust, mistrust that was happening during that time.

And he used his skills, his own, his own professional skills as a as a therapist, as a mediator to actually do that kind of work.

And so, you know, for people who are working, we also think about, you know, the kinds of, you know, what professional skills.

I mean, you're a psychologist or a retired psychologist.

I, I'm a communication and professor.

And so I think about the skills that we even bring to the work that we do.

And my guess is our viewers also.

Right.

They have their own perspectives and skills that they can bring to the work.

So that was one of the things that really hit me.

Yeah.

That's important to, you know, remember how much impact you can have?

A lot of people tend to downplay their ability to have an impact on the system, but we all have strengths and we all have something to contribute.

And if you get together in a group of people, everybody contributing their piece, I mean, you can build a pretty powerful thing.

So I think that's important, kind of related to that.

I love this idea of civic muscle that he said.

I didn't realize if I understood it right.

That was kind of a little bit of a just something natural that happened that they did at the convention.

It wasn't something that they wrote up as part of their, you know, citizen led solutions model.

So but that's cool.

But it makes sense that if you will get involved in the community with other people and do something and make something happen, you are building a kind of civic muscle.

And the thing that really I think was most impactful to me was the realization that when people do that, if they go through that process and have an impact, they that's that whole group of people has learned how the system works.

They learn how their local government goes.

They know some of the local resources, the local laws, and they get better at kind of negotiating that minefield, if you will, of of things.

And so they gain competence at how to do it the next time.

And perhaps just as importantly, they gain the confidence that says, hey, we can really do this.

We can get out there and we can make a difference, we can work together and nothing bad happens.

And it's not like the people in charge or, you know, you know, not going to listen to us.

We make a difference.

So I love that part about it.

You know, I, I've looked for great examples in Arkansas as I've been teaching my listening and civil dialog class and, and to, to bring up in class for the the students to actually study and look at and and he talked about a concept Steve did municipal or meaningful friction.

I think it could be either either way and I think he talked about in terms of municipal friction.

But I'm thinking about and and I know I might some of our viewers are going to have feelings about these three examples.

I'm not going to go into them in detail, but I think about three examples that I've seen just in the last three years, 3 to 4 years, in which citizens have actually done the kind of work he's talking about, maybe not exactly using the model, but one of them was when the Buffalo River designation was might be changed.

And there were there were concerns about that.

Another one is the Franklin County Prison.

And and, you know, kind of the Nimby you talked about.

Not in my backyard.

Right.

And then most recently is the whole data centers in, in the Pulaski County.

And so I think about, you know, citizens are trying, but sometimes there are times in which we say, well, what can we even do?

And so we have these kind of tensions about is my work really going to make a difference?

Any any thoughts on that?

Well, I think the key thing to me is the way we've got things going now.

We it's really important that people step up to the plate in their local communities because there's so much of like we've talked about before, the anger or the disengagement and backing off and leaving everything up to the the people higher up.

And when they do that and nothing good happens, you know, people get disillusioned.

And when people get that bad off, they can get kind of desperate.

And then you wind up having the people maybe doing some, maybe they start getting seduced by people with autocratic tendencies who are going to diminish our democratic forms of government.

Or maybe they're going to be seduced by real simplistic solutions because they sound good, because they're desperate for something to happen, do something locally, make something happen there.

And if enough people everywhere do that, it makes a difference.

We're going to turn things around.

And Steve really presented the citizen led solutions a different path.

It's not a perfect path, but it is a hopeful one.

And it's a path where people can stop waiting for someone else to fix everything and start asking what's what's actually possible together.

So here's something we can all consider this week.

What challenge in your community feel stuck right now?

And what problem do people complain about but they rarely work on together?

There might be more possibility there than people realize.

Yeah.

And because meaningful change doesn't always begin with big institutions.

Remember locally, it sometimes begins with ordinary citizens who are willing to take one step toward one another and then one step toward a shared problem.

And we hope this conversation about citizen led solutions can just ignite something in you, gave you something to think about, maybe a new way to think about what's possible in your own community.

So as we move forward, we'll look at what citizen led solutions can look like in practice as we talk to other guests in the future.

In future episodes, guest who will be engaged in local actions to improve their communities.

If you'd like to learn more about Braver Angels Arkansas, visit Arkansas Angels.

And our podcast, on the other hand, is also available wherever you listen to podcast.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time on Braver Arkansas.