Stakeholders Are Public and Private Landowners, Residents and Groups and Individuals With

C. Stakeholder Involvement and Coordination

The Nacimiento and San Antonio River Watershed Group (Group) will consist of agency representatives and volunteers, collectively called watershed stakeholders. The watershed stakeholders include public or private landowners, residents, businesses and groups inside the Nacimiento and San Antonio River watersheds as well as individuals or organizations who have an interest in the watersheds. GIS was used to initially identify landowners in both counties.

During the grant application development process, MCWRA worked primarily with government stakeholders. Representatives from San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties, U. S. Army, National Guard, U.S. Forest Service, The Big Sur Land Trust, Ventana Wildlife Society and applicable Resource Conservation Districts (RCD) convened on 10 May as the Grant Development Committee (GDC) to develop this proposal. The GDC reviewed the SOW, generated plan objectives and took an inventory of assets under their control that could be used to develop the plan.

One of the first tasks of the watershed group after the contract is signed is to identify and include additional stakeholders in subsequent planning activities. Groups that are already working at the sub-watershed level such as the Upper Salinas Watershed Task Force will be included. Homeowners, business owners, agricultural groups and residents will expand the stakeholder list. In addition, RCDs will identify partners in the watershed with whom they are already working and who may be interested in participating. Public Service Announcements on radio and notices in major papers will advertise major public meetings. MCWRA will use its website ( as a central point to provide meeting notices, meeting minutes, reports and access to source documents.

The members of the existing GDC will form part of the core of the watershed group along with businesses, landowners, conservation and other stakeholders groups. Public involvement requires careful planning, preparation and facilitation and given the short time frame for this proposal, only the GDC was formally convened to discuss the proposal. Facilitators will be used to ensure adequate public input and help the group develop an approach on governance and how the group will approve the recommended findings of the plan.

Although governance issues were not decided at the time of this proposal, it is expected that various interests may want to organize along common interests and be represented by stakeholder groups with a seat on an Executive Committee, which will then direct the plan. Consensus decision-making assisted by facilitation will be the primary means by which the group makes decisions. One nearby disadvantaged community, San Miguel, will be given special attention to ensure that the views of that community are fairly included in the plan; this may require the use of bilingual facilitators for some meetings. Among the topics to be addressed soon after formation of the full group will be to identify any Memoranda of Understanding that may be required for the various government agencies to implement the recommendations of the plan.