Friday, December 08, 2006
Wisdom and perspective in Tillicum
About 20 Tillicum residents who attended last night's neighborhood association meeting came up with what, in retrospect, is probably the wisest perspective about human services funding that has been expressed during this entire week. By anyone.
I attended the Tillicum neighborhood association meeting last night.
(Here's quick background you can skip if you know what a neighborhood association is: the city has officially designated neighborhood associations in several of the six police patrol areas within Lakewood. Typically, the neighbors gather to discuss crime issues within the neighborhood, organize block watches, hear reports from their neighborhood police officer, etc... Frankly, you are often lucky to get 10 people to most of these. But Tillicum has the strongest neighborhood association by far and so the group often gets involved in issues outside of crime. They can afford to do so now more than ever - Tillicum has now become one of the safest places to be in Lakewood, according to the stats!)
The president of the association has been pretty outspoken as a critic of the Oasis House funding. But the audience members looked past his agenda, and mine, and reached a good bottom line. They decided that it was too late to do anything this year. They ignored a proposed motion to ask the city to rescind the funding for Oasis. But they have asked the city to provide public notice of the list of groups that get public services funding next year, so people can ask questions about any and all of the groups. The neighborhood association will also invite human services groups that get funding to make presentations to the association, if they so desire.
This is a great outcome. It satisfies my desire and deep belief that we need to do less criticizing after the fact, and more looking ahead. And their request should satisfy the concerns of those who want, rightfully, to be able to ask tough questions of groups that get public funding.
During the debate over Initiative and Referendum, there were those who said that the council was in a better and wiser place to make decisions than "the people." Last night's meeting proved this wrong. In less than an hour, a diverse group of citizens managed to ask good questions, cut to the heart of the issue and look ahead to a better way. They are models for the council.
(**It would be a better ending as a piece of writing to close there, but I need to share one bit of housekeeping. The human services funding in this city has *never* been a secret. The list of agencies that receives public funding has always been printed in city materials before a formal and advertised public hearing, and then before public votes. But frankly, nobody showed up for the hearings except groups seeking money. Nobody seemed to care in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 that Oasis House or anyone else got money. But because a political group went looking for issues, they have raised the public profile of human services funding. And now the city's most robust neighborhood association is engaged and wants to know more. This is a marvelous opportunity for human services groups to educate the community about what they do. I can guarantee that if someone from Oasis or another group visits the Tillicum association, they will be treated with respect.
How funny that even in politics, after the rain, there's often a rainbow)
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I attended the Tillicum neighborhood association meeting last night.
(Here's quick background you can skip if you know what a neighborhood association is: the city has officially designated neighborhood associations in several of the six police patrol areas within Lakewood. Typically, the neighbors gather to discuss crime issues within the neighborhood, organize block watches, hear reports from their neighborhood police officer, etc... Frankly, you are often lucky to get 10 people to most of these. But Tillicum has the strongest neighborhood association by far and so the group often gets involved in issues outside of crime. They can afford to do so now more than ever - Tillicum has now become one of the safest places to be in Lakewood, according to the stats!)
The president of the association has been pretty outspoken as a critic of the Oasis House funding. But the audience members looked past his agenda, and mine, and reached a good bottom line. They decided that it was too late to do anything this year. They ignored a proposed motion to ask the city to rescind the funding for Oasis. But they have asked the city to provide public notice of the list of groups that get public services funding next year, so people can ask questions about any and all of the groups. The neighborhood association will also invite human services groups that get funding to make presentations to the association, if they so desire.
This is a great outcome. It satisfies my desire and deep belief that we need to do less criticizing after the fact, and more looking ahead. And their request should satisfy the concerns of those who want, rightfully, to be able to ask tough questions of groups that get public funding.
During the debate over Initiative and Referendum, there were those who said that the council was in a better and wiser place to make decisions than "the people." Last night's meeting proved this wrong. In less than an hour, a diverse group of citizens managed to ask good questions, cut to the heart of the issue and look ahead to a better way. They are models for the council.
(**It would be a better ending as a piece of writing to close there, but I need to share one bit of housekeeping. The human services funding in this city has *never* been a secret. The list of agencies that receives public funding has always been printed in city materials before a formal and advertised public hearing, and then before public votes. But frankly, nobody showed up for the hearings except groups seeking money. Nobody seemed to care in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 that Oasis House or anyone else got money. But because a political group went looking for issues, they have raised the public profile of human services funding. And now the city's most robust neighborhood association is engaged and wants to know more. This is a marvelous opportunity for human services groups to educate the community about what they do. I can guarantee that if someone from Oasis or another group visits the Tillicum association, they will be treated with respect.
How funny that even in politics, after the rain, there's often a rainbow)
