Rockville At the outset, I approached the representative for the Farmers and managed to form a strong partnership due to our shared interests, and I attempted to do the same with the Homebuilders however ran out of time before the negotiations were convened and the opening statements were made. After these statements and a discussion of the specific issues at hand and each parties' position in regard to these issues, a workable range in which the negotiations could take place was clearly established. After the broad outlines had been defined as to where an agreement might be found, the mediator allowed a second chance for all parties to convene in smaller groups, at which point I approached the City Planner and the Conservation group, increasing my coalition of two (with the Farmers) to a coalition of four as we all agreed on a mutually beneficial outcome. This still left us without...

The Homebuilders and the other parties not in my coalition wanted to vote for a tougher land use regulation, which the mediator also attempted to persuade our coalition to accept. Strong stances by the Conservation group and myself eventually caused the Homebuilders to buckle and accept the Environmental Impact Assessment law, and the negotiation was resolved after this hurdle was cleared.
The mediator role had a significant impact on the negotiations, and not entirely a positive one. The fact that the negotiations themselves were controlled by an independent and ostensibly neutral part was definitely helpful, as there was greater organization and no debate about how or when things should happen -- the mediator specifically allowed and set…