Former Seaside School District superintendent Doug Dougherty and Seaside Mayor Jay Barber received an invitation to the Ulsan International Impact Conference, a public-private partnership between Ulsan — the seventh largest city in South Korea, located in the southeastern area of the country — and experts in their fields to learn more about strategies from local entrepreneurs and successful local community projects. Two Portland State University professors, Dr. Junghee Lee and Dr. William “Ted” Donlan provided the connection. We spoke to Dougherty and Barber on their return.

Q: What was the theme of the conference?

Dougherty: They have some very local needs. They wanted ideas and focus on what successful programs in Korea and in the United States have worked to bring about community engagement. In my case, they were curious about problem-solving processes.

Q: Is there a tsunami inundation zone in Korea?

Dougherty: I have pictures of tsunami signs in Busan (Korea’s second-largest city, 40 miles from Ulsan) and they have great signage and even have directional trails. But they are woefully unprepared as far as structures.

Q: In the conversation with the conference panel, you explained about how Seaside School District voters funded the bond for the new school campus. How did the audience relate to that?

Dougherty: In Korea, they plan very differently. That was a major “aha” moment. Their school facilities are primarily funded through grants that come from the federal government. The problem with that is that there is so much migration from small towns to Seoul. Almost 4,000 schools have closed over the past 40 years in South Korea, mainly because of steep declining enrollment in rural areas of the country. They were looking at mechanisms that would maintain or could help build up local communities.

Q: What were your proposals?

Dougherty: Whenever you’re going out for a bond, you’re going to have different points of view. I explained how we addressed those different points of view in the Seaside School District as we were going through this bond.

It especially caught their interest when they learned that Oregon schools pay for new facilities through a majority of local voters agreeing to sell investment bonds, spreading the total cost of the project over decades. They shared with me that bonding for school facilities had not been done in Korea.

Q: Jay, your talk at the conference on Day two focused on “civility.” Did the audience have any preconceived notions of American life?

Barber: The feedback that I got one-on-one talking with people is that they are very much aware of the lack of civility happening in the United States today and it’s of great concern to them.

As a major trade partner, they see the lack of civility as an economic issue that could endanger the whole world economy because people are unable or unwilling to be civil, and listen and talk to each other. They saw the importance of us really beginning to focus on that in our country.

In our one little community, we began to demonstrate that people will listen to each other and share their ideas and come together in a civil way.

A lot of the interest was in how we bring citizens together to really formulate a cohesive, cooperative process in our community. I think they really listened to both of us in terms of how we communicate and how we work with local citizens to make sure their voices are heard.

Clearly, the ability to listen to a broad perspective is the key to arriving at constructive and well-thought-out decisions. But listening is a two-way street. In the process of listening, both parties must be committed to respecting and giving the other party the opportunity to share their perspective.

Q: There’s so much cynicism out there. How do you counter that?

Barber: One of the things that I focused on was what’s happening in one Oregon school district that is no longer allowing people to attend their meetings. That’s the direction that we’re headed if we aren’t able to adopt civility in our governmental and even in our business interchanges. No. 1, more of us need to step up and model that, and No. 2, to expect that from our interactions with citizens. And I think that’s what citizens want, but the reason we don’t have civility is that people don’t feel they’re being heard. And so I think it’s a two-way street.

Q: Are you both going to take your presentations on the road here in the United States?

Barber: We’ll be singing the song of civility.

Dougherty: We are always optimistic.

Q: What was your takeaway?

Barber: It’s amazing — 5,000 miles away, Doug and I can speak to what’s happening in Seaside. It was an amazing opportunity.

Dougherty: And honor. It made me proud to be from Seaside.

Q: Were there any surprises while you were there?

Dougherty: I don’t think Jay or I expected to be wined and dined. I tried some of everything, and most of everything I liked.