Who hasn't felt left on the outside? Who hasn't felt they carry the whole burden of a problem alone? In community service, and in the Fremont Chamber of Commerce, we struggle to maintain a balance between getting things done, and keeping the process to transparent as an invitation for others to get involved. If you want to participate, we welcome you.

Old Boys Network In The New Millenium

I've heard grumbles, about how things in Fremont get done "in the back room" or "behind closed doors." People have given this as their excuse for not participating in community activities. They feel cut out on discussions or solutions to a problem or an issue that they know they ought to have been consulted or notified about. As if the lack of notice, the absence of engraved invitation, signals sinister, deliberate exclusion.

Reality is, if you look behind those doors, they aren't locked. The people sitting around the table (it usually is a table, with uncomfortable chairs and stuffy air) came together when they thought no one else would. They were willing at this time on this issue to get to whatever location at whatever hour necessary to solve the problem. Rather than excluding participation, usually people around the table grumble over why no one else showed up.

You Didn't Need To Shout About It

There are the open, public meetings held with increasingly creative efforts at total transparency. Each month in this area of Seattle, even if you discount the regularly scheduled general meetings of the many community groups that keep neighborhoods like Fremont running, too many public meetings take place. Issue related informational meetings, advisory meetings or forums fill up weekday nights and Saturday afternoons until it appears impossible that anyone actually has time to live a life.

It can feel discouraging. It needn't be. Through the open, regularly scheduled community group general meetings attendees hear about the additional public meetings, or make the decision to hold one, as well as about the smaller, more private discussions that go on - and get reports back from those volunteers that attended each. The City and community groups also advertise public meetings through newspapers, mailers, postings and phone trees and e-mail distributions, to anyone who expresses an interest.

Public meetings invite people new to the issue and therefore unfamiliar with the background, process and potentialities surrounding it. Many attend the meetings out of an emotional reaction, a common motivation for community activism, but high emotions can impede learning and problem solving. Also, the sheer numbers of people at public meetings make finding solutions difficult. You can solve a problem with more than 10 people present, but it will take hours (if not days) longer than in a small group.

Balance Attempted

Neighborhood Planning, done over several years starting in the mid-1990's, took place out in the open, during public meetings, mostly. Surveys, discussions and some very heated debates took time from many volunteers' lives. Several people found it took 10 or more hours a week of meetings just to get one point across or one issue resolved.

And while all of it was done publicly, not all the meetings were public meetings. Sometimes small groups of people met to discuss one topic, one point or to settle one dispute. Sometimes small groups met because the majority of people were weary of the process and the lack of progress made at the large forums where background and goals have to be re-explained to those who either just joined or missed past discussions.

No matter how public the meeting, someone doesn't attend, and accusations of exclusivity erupt. At the fourth of five public design meetings on a Restricted Parking Zone (RPZ) for Fremont, after months of notices in newspapers, postings, mailings and leafleting, people walked in demanding to know why they hadn't been told about the issue - and requiring a complete recap of what had already been done so far from attendees who'd heard it three times already.

Community advocacy and activism requires active involvement. However, in the United States while we maintain the freedom to vote, we've retained the right not to vote. In community service, we who represent the community never can entirely divorce our personal subjectivity. We need other voices at the table but until then the door will close, the meeting begin, and the decision get made - no matter who sat at the table, or who didn't.

Please, won't you join us next time? To get involved, take a look at the Fremont Chamber calendar on this website for regularly scheduled community meetings. Everyone is invited, especially you.