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Stakeholders' Workshop

MS. CAMPOS-INFANTINO: Now, I'm the Mediator.

DR. O'TOOLE: You've got several titles, haven't you, Doris.

MS. CAMPOS-INFANTINO: Yes, I have.

Thank you, Dr. O'Toole.

My name is Doris Campos-Infantino and I work for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of Human Resources.

I spend a lot of my time doing facilitation work with small groups and large groups and I also am a mediator. By title, I'm a Dispute Resolution Specialist. So I don't really have anything to do with the content of this two-day workshop, what is all of your business, although it has been extremely interesting to learn a little bit about it and I'm looking forward to hearing a lot of what you talk about today and tomorrow.

But I was invited to assist with the planning of this conference to ensure that it could be as effective as possible in meeting all of your needs.

So the agenda that we have for the next two days is an attempt to do that. It's an attempt to meet the needs of the government, as it's represented by the Interagency Working Group staff and you, the public stakeholders.

And the goals being specifically to establish a dialogue between the government and public stakeholders, as well as to give concrete input to the government's response to the Advisory Committee's recommendations.

Now, how is that going to happen over the next two days? There's going to be a series of six panels, really; five on specific areas within the recommendations where the stakeholders and the government feel a constructive dialogue can take place.

It's not going to be a forum where it's going to be constructive to discuss individual cases or issues of compensation. There are other forums for those issues. But there will be an open forum at the end of today for stakeholders to comment generally on the Advisory Committee's recommendations, so there's that opportunity to participate.

Now, how are the panels going to work? The panels are each going to have government representatives, someone from the Interagency Working Group staff who will summarize the proposed government response because they have been working on a proposed response. Then the stakeholder panelists will be invited to comment on how their community is affected by the recommendation, as well as to give concrete specific input to what the government response should include.

And lastly, we're going to have experts, technical experts on the subject matter comment and respond to the issues raised by both the government and the stakeholders. But let's keep in mind that there are six panels over the course of two 6-1/2 hour workshop days so there's only an hour and a half for each panel.

We have approximately eight speakers for each panel, so it's going to be really important that everybody try to keep to some guidelines so that everyone can participate and we can get as much covered as possible on all of the issues.

If you all come here hoping to discuss issues that are important to you -- and so does everyone else in the room -- in order to give an opportunity for all the issues to be aired or as many as possible, and for everyone to participate, it's going to be really important to stick to some general guidelines.

In working with groups, I often call them groundrules. It's a way of remembering the behaviors that will help everybody work better together.

First, although this is something we're all sort of passively doing right now, it's really important that everyone try to listen actively over the course of the next two days, because for effective dialogue to happen, you really need to try to understand the speaker's point of view, not to be preparing your comment while the other person is speaking.

The dialogue is going to be best -- it's going to take place best when you're able to respond to the initial speaker's point of view, as well as to share your own. And that's the other point. When you speak, focus your comments and your responses to other people's comments, specifically on what is your concern? What are the issues that you're most concerned about? What do you see is different between what your concern is and the speaker's concern is, and what ideas do you have that you can state for how your concerns can be addressed?

That will keep us working constructively to problem solve on these issues, rather than having a whole series of people just speaking their mind but not ever getting their issues addressed. And that's my hope for you. That not only will you have an opportunity to speak here but you'll also have an opportunity to have your concerns addressed in dialogue.

So, again, try to listen actively to understand the speaker's point of view and speaking in a way that clearly identifies your issues of concern and your ideas for how they can be addressed will really be helpful over the course of the next two days.

Now, some other general guidelines that have already been mentioned by Colonel Bailey but that have been pounded into my head by the staff people who arranged the logistics for this meeting is that we really need to be quiet in the hallways. I was told that Security has threatened to remove people who are loud and obnoxious, so if -- which, I mean, I'm pretty nervous myself because I happen to be a loud and obnoxious person.

So, someone -- if you can keep in mind to remind each other to keep our voices low out in the hallways, that would be really helpful. Then we won't have to rescue anyone from Security.

Now, it's okay to yell in here with the door closed.

Okay. Today we have three panels: Medical Monitoring and Notification and Paul Seligman -- did I pronounce your name correct? Thank you. -- is going to be the panel moderator for this morning's panel and they're going to get started in just a few seconds.

The second panel is on the Atomic Veterans and Hanford Downwinders and Susan Mather is going to be the panel moderator for that panel.

Is she here yet?

Could you please stand so that people who are on that panel, please try to get in touch with Susan before your panel, maybe during the break. Check in and let her know you're here and perhaps you can decide the sequence of who's going to speak first at that point.

On the last -- the last panel today, that's the Stakeholders Open Forum. Colonel Bailey and Acie Byrd, who's sitting in the back -- he got his coffee already. He's back from the cafeteria.

Could you raise your hand and maybe wave it?

If you could check in with either of them to let them know that you're here, that would be greatly appreciated, too.

Now, some last final logistical notes, and the most important thing that you need to know is where the restroom is. The women's room, if you walk out this door, make a quick left and a quick right, it's right there. The men's room is in the exact same location but across the big patio where the fountain is, so it's on the other side but it's down the hall. I hope you all haven't been looking for it yet.

Elevators. If you go down this hallway and make your first left, they're right there. Stairs, if you prefer them, are across the hallway.

There's a cafeteria downstairs and -- I'll be polite. It has meager offerings. Across from the cafeteria there are snack machines and soda machines if that's all you need. But there's -- I hear -- now don't yell at me if it's not what this is, but I hear that there's a really good cafeteria in the other Agriculture Building across the street on the first level.

But the way you get there is going down the stairs or the elevator to the basement. Somehow, taking a hallway -- I believe it's called the promenade that runs under the street, and going up. And it's in that building on the first level. It's supposed to be a nice cafeteria.

But I'm sure you also know that the Smithsonian Restaurant -- I mean -- restaurant -- Smithsonian Buildings and Museums are all along this mall right behind this building and they all have cafeteria, although they're pretty expensive.

My favorite suggestion is to grab a hotdog at one of the carts that are lined up along the streets. $1.50 will buy you a hotdog with everything on it, very cheap mean, hot. Okay. Fourteen fat grams, but -- you know, everything in it. That's right.

(Laughter.)

So those are all the places. You have about an hour and a half for lunch, so enjoy your time there.

Okay. There are people -- Elly, could you step in for a second?

People like Elly, if you turn around and take a look at her, she's wearing a bright orange sticker on her name tag. That means she's a helper and a problem solver, but not all your problems. If you have marriage problems, you can't bring them to Elly. But if you need to find something, directions for anything or if you just need a shoulder to cry on, people with the orange badges will help you. There are about six of those people so you should be able to get help if you need it.

Now, there's a person named Kim McLeod that's sitting on the table outside. She's your handy-dandy travel coordinator. For all the people who are on government travel and will have receipts to turn in, you need to give them to Kim by tomorrow afternoon. She also needs to make sure she has a name and address, the address where you want your check sent, so it's pretty important that you stop by and see Kim and find out about your travel information.

Let's see. When you speak, because this is being transcribed, it's really important that you identify yourself by name and by organization and to speak loudly and clearly into the mike, like what I'm trying to do right now. Otherwise, we won't capture your thoughts very effectively.

If you brought handouts to distribute or if you would like handouts to collect, the handout table is located on the immediate right outside this door and it looks like people were still adding to that table of handouts, just even a few moments ago. So, feel free to stop by that table and request any documents that you want or pick up handouts.

And that's it. If you don't have a name tag, it means you haven't checked in and you probably haven't gotten your goody folder, so please check in if you haven't yet done so.

Thank you so much. If you need anything -- yes?



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