Open letter to District One for a grass roots
council election
Friends,
I have been talking with people in the
community and have
spoken with most of my fellow candidates for Oakland City Council
District One
and have found broad support for a grass roots campaign close to
the
people. So I am writing
this letter with
three sets of suggestions on how to make that happen.
First the community needs to step forward and
take the
lead. All of the grass
roots groups can
invite candidates to their regular meetings, hold mixers and/or
forums, interview
candidates etc. By grass
roots groups I
mean everyone from the Friends of the Tool Library to Business
Improvement Districts
including the NCPC’s, PANIL, STAND, OCO and all the other friends
of other
libraries, and local groups. This
would
be a good time for a local union or chamber of commerce to host an
event and
get their questions asked to the candidates too.
Second, we need to make it easy and inexpensive
to do. Here are some
things I saw two years ago that
I think could help:
·
Just hold a mixer, pot luck food, minimal
time
for the candidates to introduce themselves and maximum time to
meet and talk
one on one.
·
Only meet with a couple candidates at a
time,
easier to schedule, less of a production.
·
Hold a couple of small panels on the
themes of
interest to your group members instead of one big panel that crams
too much in.
Record your meetings with candidates and post them to Ustream for your members who could not make the meeting.
Record your meetings with candidates and post them to Ustream for your members who could not make the meeting.
·
Let the candidates speak. Answering questions is fine,
but at some
point letting the candidates define what they (we) think is
important.
·
Invite a candidate or two to your regular
meetings to be part of the agenda but only part of the agenda. The candidates should commit
to being there
for your whole meeting and seeing what your groups regular
business is. Between now
and November there is time to get
to all of the candidates running to at least one meeting with some
calm.
·
INVITE PRESS THAT MIGHT REALLY COME AND
REPORT,
that means people like http://oaklandlocal.com/
http://oaklandnorth.net/
and viewpoint@eddrick.net
and our local
neighborhood print.
Third, all of us candidates need to make
ourselves
available. Speaking with
those fellow
candidates I found at the Oakland Builders Alliance, I felt that
all the
candidates would like to have these close, grass roots meetings. It is obvious that the grass
roots groups
will need to do the organizing and inviting.
The candidates need to make it clear when they will be
available. (for myself,
see below) I have copied all of them on this open letter.
Available for public events starting July 13th
all Wednesdays and Thursdays afternoon or evenings.
Friday-Saturday-Sunday by Fridays 7/13, 7/27, 8/10, 8/24, 9/7, 9/21, 10/5, 10/19 and 11/2.
all Wednesdays and Thursdays afternoon or evenings.
Friday-Saturday-Sunday by Fridays 7/13, 7/27, 8/10, 8/24, 9/7, 9/21, 10/5, 10/19 and 11/2.
