Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/140126
COMMUNITY SUPPORT • 15 Consider sponsoring a Little League team and having an employee coach it. This is one great way to build good will with parents and local officials. to collect information about these potential supporters for future use — name, address, phone, and email. You should start by sending thank-you notes to those who attended the events, and this should form the beginning of a database of recipients for a company or plant newsletter to provide the latest information about the quarry and your operations. This will also be an opportunity for you to receive feedback from the public about any issues they might be upset about. After time, when neighbors and local residents see that they get answers to their questions or responses to their complaints, they will contact you first rather than contacting a city councilor or the mayor. Even though you cannot always give a resident the resolution that they want, just the fact that you are openly communicating with them and creating that relationship will go a long way in being seen as a good corporate citizen. The real benefit gained from all these efforts will come if and when you seek to expand your operations, add a cement facility, or build an asphalt or ready-mix plant — either locally or in a nearby community or county. With public hearings or public comment required for virtually every permit or approval you seek, the database you've built now becomes indispensable. It is OK to send out CommunitySupport_AGRM0613.indd 15 messages and to ask for support for your application from these people. After all, they independent citizens who can testify about your good corporate citizenship and contributions to the community in which you operate. "All of the contributions, whether it through monetary support or volunteer efforts, have helped with local opposition with respect to permitting," says Register Emerson. "It is much harder to oppose an application when you have personally benefited from the local efforts of a company." In the end, reaching out to your community is a positive. The effort engages us in conversation with local residents and officials, and gives them a chance to explore our industry, which is not well understood by the average person. Explaining what aggregates are used for, how the average person depends on our product every day, how state-of-the-art all the science is, and how safe an industry this is can go a long way when community support is needed to provide the political justification for local decision makers to vote 'yes.' AM Chris Hopkins is senior vice president for aggregates and mining at The Saint Consulting Group, which specializes in building community support for controversial land use proposals. 5/19/13 12:25 PM