Broad agreement and hopeful language prevailed among the crowd of about 150 Envision 2020 participants when they chose a vision statement with flowery, nonspecific language during the most recent meeting, last Thursday.

Communities tend to agree more on where they want to go than on how they want to get there, says Derek Okubo, who is facilitating the process as vice president of the National Civic League.

After all, who can argue that a downtown shouldn’t be vital or that the environment isn’t worth preserving?

But difficult issues loom on the horizon, and, while Okubo is confident that they can be addressed, the way these issues get resolved will be key to the success of Envision 2020.

Cat herder

Part of Okubo’s role is to lead groups of widely diverse people to come together and trust each other. And for that he was given the metaphor of “cat herder” — sort of like a sheep dog, but with animals that would just as soon stare at walls all day as interact with each other.

Humans may be somewhat more sociable than cats, but Okubo says participants in other cities tend to react to adversity by fragmenting and claiming turf.

He expects one of the biggest gains from this project to be the formation of new, stronger relationships. Okubo calls them “soft outcomes” and their goal is to “change the culture of how business is done.”

He’s seen it in all of the roughly 50 cities he’s guided through this community planning process.

Scott Wingerson has seen it, too. He’s the assistant city manager in Gladstone, Mo., a city of about 27,000 that completed Gladstone On the Move about 18 months ago.

“We didn’t anticipate the soft outcomes,” he says, “the positive feelings generated.”

Elephants, gorillas

Wingerson also remembers the “knock-down, drag-out arguments” during which everyone had to air their grievances.

“If it’s this big gorilla in the room that nobody talks about, it’s hard to get past,” he said.

It’s not yet clear what this area’s most contentious issues will be, but the issue of a merger between Mankato and North Mankato arose during the second Envision 2020 meeting, as did the level of cooperation between the two governments.