DemocracySpace.org

Friday digest-open thread 6/27/08

Welcome to the second official weekend of summer. From coast to coast, we have reports of people working together to strengthen the democracy whose 232nd birthday we'll mark next Friday. Here's an email we received today from Carolyn Lukensmeyer of AmericaSpeaks:

One of our current projects that I am particularly excited about is a workshop that AmericaSpeaks, Demos, and Everyday Democracy are convening in late July. We are inviting 40+ key people from the fields of deliberative democracy, electoral reform and community development to develop an agenda for expanding democracy to be presented to the new president in November.

More and more people are recognizing this is a unique moment in American politics and that it is essential that we seize the opportunity to become more of the country we really want to be. We have the possibility of demonstrating that transparency, inclusion, and accountability, key principles underpinning the foundation of our democracy, can be realized.

That realization is happening at the local level, too. In Burlington, Vermont, a Thursday luncheon with the theme "Vermont Leadership at the Crossroads" drew about 40 people who are eager to promote and pursue a new, more diverse leadership style for the state. The guest speaker, civic entrepreneur Hal Colston (founder of Good News Garage and NeighborKeepers), told of a vision where, by 2018, the state's aging, mostly homogenous leadership would meet regularly with upcoming minority leaders to forge new levels of trust and understanding between races and class groups.  "That apparently sounded pretty good to his audience, which applauded warmly at the end," Tim Johnson of the Burlington Free Press wrote today. " Why wait till 2018, someone then asked. Why not start now?" Wanda Hines, co-coordinator of the Burlington Legacy Project and head of the Social Equity Investment Project - which sponsored the luncheon - confirms that people are eager to get moving. "After the event was over nobody wanted to leave," she wrote in an email today. "Instead the majority stayed discussing what could be, where do we sign up and when do we get started."

Community members in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are looking ahead, too. Today marks the kickoff of Dream City: Vision 2020. "The aim of the project is to give everyone living here - kids, construction workers, artists, teachers, military personnel, engineers, retirees - a greater role in shaping our future," Warren Epstein writes in The Gazette. The first phase is  inspiration, he adds, centered on a Dream City 2020 website, "which will give you many opportunities to participate. Whether you'd like to give your two cents about what our community needs or you'd like to find a place for your classroom or organization in Dream City, you'll find it there." Epstein was among a team of Colorado Springs people at our recent Making Every Voice Matter national conference in Denver, and we are eager to see where citizens and the plan's partners - which include the newspaper, Leadership Pikes Peak, the Pikes Peak Library District, and the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region - go with this project.

And in California (plus one at the NCDD conference in Texas), Antiraciscm.com has a full schedule of its White Ally Learning Lab workshops this summer and fall. Some W.A.L.L. experiences are one day; some are weekend events; all will help participants get the tools to recognize privilege, overcome racism, and pave the way for a better, more socially just world. CoAction also plans a summer reading group club around Understanding & Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America by Joe Barndt. We'll post more info on that when we get it. You can see a preview of the book here.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court made one of its most anticipated rulings of the year, deciding 5-4 to overturn a Washington, D.C., handgun ban. Many politicians from both major parties hailed the ruling as a 2nd Amendment victory, but Dawn Turner Trice of the Chicago Tribune expressed some reservations in her column today, writing that in the ruling, "five members of the court edited the 2nd Amendment. In essence, they said: Scratch the preamble, only 14 words count. In doing so, they have curtailed the power of the legislatures and the city councils to protect their citizens." (More here.)

We'll skip the Friday digest next week in order to celebrate the Fourth of July. But watch DemocracySpace next Thursday for an opportunity to say what everyday democracy means to you.

Vermont eyes 100% broadband

Here's a head's up on a cool conference taking place next Thursday (May 29) in Burlington, Vermont. Together with the Snelling Center for Government at the University of Vermont and Champlain College,  Everyday Democracy will sponsor "Fulfilling Our E-state Potential: Building Community in a 'Connected Age.'" The daylong event on the Champlain College campus is billed as a "lively, interactive public symposium on the intersection of community, civic life, and technology in Vermont." Best of all, the event will be live blogged for those of us who can't be there in person.

Vermont has set a goal to have broadband and cellular service available across the entire state by 2010. Next week's conference will explore the implications such blanket coverage will have for public life in Vermont. Some of the questions asked will include:

• How might civic life change in a fully connected state?
• How will we master emerging technologies so they unite us and strengthen communities?
• How will we address issues of privacy, equity, resistance to change, ownership, and cost?
• How will local and state governmental units ensure that all citizens have equal access to information and participation?

The featured speaker will be Lewis M. Feldstein, co-Author (with Robert Putnam) of Better Together: Restoring the American Community. Here's a full agenda. Registration is $45, which includes lunch. Sign up by this Friday, May 23.

Welcome to the Learning Exchange

About 50 people have gathered in East Hartford, Connecticut, this week from around the country to join in the first of two Learning Exchanges for Communities Creating Racial Equity. Everyday Democracy executive director Martha McCoy (below) greeted us by saying that the program is "a step in a dream we've had for a long time."

Formerly known as the Study Circles Resource Center, Everyday Democracy began focusing on racism during the 1992 civil disturbances in Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating. But in the 16 years since then, America has changed the way we talk about racism, McCoy said.

Early discussions were driven by King's plaintive question, "Can't we all just get along?" At first, it was enough for tens of thousands of people to come together in communities nationwide to talk about racial differences. Eventually, however, communities - and SCRC - understood that real change had to come on the institutional and policy level. Today, Everyday Democracy helps lead the effort to turn community organizing and dialogue into substantive change.  "We're working on two of the leading edges in the country," McCoy said: racial equity and making democracy work better.

CCRE participating communities include South Sacramento County, California; New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland; Syracuse, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and Lynchburg, Virginia. Today at the conference, communities will tell their stories, discuss structural racism, and learn tools for evaluation and communication. Tomorrow, participants will look forward to the next six to 12 months of work, using markers of progress we'll identify this week (and backed by action grants that Everyday Democracy will award via generous funding from the Kellogg and Mott Foundations).

And along the way - via DemocracySpace, our website, and other tools - we'll share much of the communities' progress with you so that cities and towns beyond the initiative can take what we're learning and make it your own.

Does your town have 'heart & soul'?

The Orton Family Foundation is inviting communities of fewer than 50,000 people in four New England states (New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts,
and Vermont) and four Rocky Mountain states (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) to apply for grants of up to $100,000 to help fund planning initiatives that reflect the town's "heart and soul." Two communities from each region will be chosen.

From the Orton website:

The Orton Family Foundation helps citizens and leaders of small cities and towns identify and express their community’s heart and soul—those attributes citizens hold dear and that connect individuals to one another and to the community as a whole. When they are fully understood, these heart and soul attributes can be used to shape and drive decisions that protect and enhance local character and values even as change occurs.

According to a FAQ that accompanies the foundation's request for proposals, planning projects will include "an open, in-depth listening and visioning process characterized by broad, direct citizen engagement." Find out if your community fits the profile by reading the RFP here and the FAQ here. The application deadline is March 3, 2008.

Friday digest-open thread 12/07/07

Sorry to be so late in posting today. There's plenty to report, so let's get right to it:

Two communities with brand-new dialogue-to-action programs held action forums last night. Click here to read about the doings in Lynchburg, Virginia, where 120 people have been working on racism and racial equity issues. Then check out this story about last night's action forum in Lewiston, Maine, where local youth and their adult allies expressed an interest in building a youth center and getting a youth voice on the school board.

Citizens of Brattleboro, Vermont, held an action forum this week, too, to conclude a round of discussions on poverty. Here's a story that ran earlier this week, before the forum. Just a reminder: Poverty will be the focus of this month's DemocracySpace water cooler, set for 1 p.m. Eastern next Thursday, December 13. Join us online at that time to talk with other organizers who are working to move their communities from poverty to prosperity.

The Iowa Caucus - the kickoff event of the 2008 presidential primary season - is January 3. But today is National Caucus Day, an effort to get people to spend a little time together talking about the candidates and what we seek in our next chief exec. Click here to see if an event is happening near you.

Speaking of the presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Barack Obama gave a major speech on public service this week, saying he'd promote policies - including a vastly expanded AmeriCorps - to help Americans of all ages give back to their communities. The plan would also "invest in the capacity of nonprofits to innovate and expand successful programs across the country." Click here to read the plan in depth.

PublicDecisions.com, which specializes in training for public participation planners and elected officials, has announced a full slate of online classes for the first quarter of 2008. Selections include "Involving Youth in Decision Making," a tongue-in-cheek "Ten Reasons Not to Involve the Public in Your Decisions," and "Managing News Media in Public Involvement." Click here for the full schedule.

The international conference on climate change in Bali reached its halfway mark today, two days after the U.S. Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee passed a bill aimed at cutting global warming emissions by 70 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. The Bush administration remains opposed to mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and a House-passed energy bill stalled in the Senate today. But as Katharine Mieszkowski writes at Salon, the American public is now leading the way on the issue and it's looking more likely that the U.S. will be on board when the next treaties are written in 2009. Click here.