BOARD02267

• Board Meeting Date: 5/27/1968
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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social action programs, diffusion processes,
and related factors have been studied and can
be reasonably well defined. Some types of pub-
lic behaviour or reactions can be reasonably
well anticipated. There are methods for assess-
ing receptivity to change. Researc~ ~s need~d I
on communications methodology. Ind~v~dual d~s-
ciplines tend to work from their own criteria
and these must be balanced out in an inter-
disciplinary approach. For example, economic
efficiency versus social values.'

I just had to get glasses and I am not
used to them yet. I guess I am becoming more
dependent than I thought.

Three years ago a similar demand led our
department to undertake two studies. One of
these sought to determine the types of limita-
tions and potential limitations of various
public and personality types place on policy
makers of the decision making arena in water.
In short, in accordance with Norm's little
diagram up here, we permitted the agencies to
define the problem and then we structured a
three-year program of research to specify the
agencies of the State of Colorado, and possibly
some adjoining areas if we needed them for
comparison, a project which would attempt to
give some answers to this problem because the
indications are that a gap exists between prior-
ities of decision makers and those of their
constituents. Moreover it is likely that these
discrepancies exist in a majority of the decision
making processes outside of water as well as
within it. For instance, during the 1966 con-
gressional election a member of a private survey
research firm confided that many of the candi-
dates seeking election were speaking to issues
that were relevant to no more than five to ten I
percent of their voting constituents and the
only rehasonththehY werhe really winning was be- ,
cause, e oug t, t eir opponents weren't
speaking to issues that were any more relevant.
In short, it has been demonstrated that we
really don't know what our constituents demand
and think, as well as we should. This was one
of our basic objectives.