Neighborhoods: Organize or fail.

Spinning off yesterday's conversation, Ted passed along this link to notes he took at a neighborhood forum in 2006, with relevant ideas still hanging:

Meeting Agenda - Tuesday 8/15 - Forum Meeting Notes

My Thursday newspaper column has been dispatched. Yesterday's points are well taken, and I'm in agreement when it comes to these ultimate goals and strategies necessary to get from here to there. My personal obsession is the ground game, i.e., what must be done to assemble the components of a politically viable, broader based movement. Specifically, it's promoting a superstructure of unity much like the council mentioned by Chris. Without collective action, there will be continued stalemate.

Note that nowhere in this am I proposing that existing neighborhood associations endorse candidates or do anything to suggest picking favorites. Furthermore, we know that neither political party is going to take a stand (we'd be pleased as punch if one or the other did). I'm suggesting that if we're organized and disciplined, the political choices won't need to be said aloud. It will be obvious who's in, and who's out.

The current example of ROCK should be sufficient illustration as to how a local lobby group can lawfully punch above its weight. Note that while ROCK's root cause is sex, its tagline pertains to preserving property value through ordinance enforcement.

Sound familiar?

The neighborhoods must do many things to succeed, but they cannot succeed separately. They must be able to wield sufficient power to make the ward heelers take notice. Whether Wednesday's forum will be any different from previous ones is yet to be determined, and yet, how many of these are we prepared to attend before we begin to learn from the past?

Discuss if you wish. I must go and be a capitalist for a while.