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workshop. This will keep everyone on the same track, avoid confusion, and identify problems or ways to improve the workshop discussions. A shortened version of the agenda can be distributed to the media, public officials, and others. STEP 15 Alake sure public affairs work is wlderway. Some agencies and organizations have separate public affairs offices that can handle the media contacts and other activities that ensure publicity for the workshop. The planning area's Congressional delegation should be kept informed about the project. STEP 13 Get ready to document the workshop. Followup documenta- tion may be called for. A formal, illustrated plan or other document can be useful, as could a description of the whole procedure. Plan for professional assistance on these tasks, if needed. STEP 14 Maximize public involvement. Public meetings are not the only way to obtain public input to and review of draft plan measures. The local or regional public television or radio stations may agree to provide live coverage of a public meeting and even, as in the Vermillion Basin pro- ject, a toll-free line for comments and questions from the listening audience. They will need plenty of time (three months or more) to fit it into the programming schedule. AT LEAST ONE l\lOt\TH BHORE THE WORKSHOP S T E P 1 (i Get local publicity. Extensive local media coverage should begin two to four weeks before the workshop. This will keep the workshop and the issues it will cover fresh in the minds of the local public. Press releases are one way to get coverage; appearances on radio or television talk shmvs are another. Sparsely populated, rural areas often have highly effi- cient phone trees. The goal is to be sure that all the interested folks and aU sources of controversy SUf- face before or during the work- shop-not afterwards. This is not a study by the agencies for the agencies. . . This is a plan develop- ment process centcred on the interests of the local river basil!. So we paid par- ticular attention to idClltifying all the local illterests and all the local illdivid- uals that might be illterested ill provid- illg illput. We sellt a letter to every coullty commission, every city jillallce officer, every disaster managemellt official, every office of a state or local agency, alld asked them to Ilominate illdividuals to come ill and give their illput alld voice their COllcerns. None of the plall elemellts came from the pro- ject partners themselves. All of them came from ilulividuals. ..