Category Archives: Good Government

North End Armory sparks Access Debate

Posted on Saturday, February 3, 2007 by • No comments yet

The City of Burlington picked up the Gosse Ct armory cheap from the National Guard in 2005… but what to do with it? Local media has reported some of the discussion about what to do with the dilapidated building.

More ideas and debate have surfaced this week through Front Porch Forum. One member suggested a fitness center. A neighbor responded that we had plenty of opportunities for fitness. In defense of his original idea, Patrick Standen responded to his neighborhood forum:

With all due respect I think I am a pretty good judge as to what is accessible and not having spent 30 years in a wheelchair, served on federal, state and local access boards and functioned as an ADA consultant–that’s the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sadly, our YMCA does not provide “A fine fitness center… for all abilities” because it is completely wheelchair inaccessible. Having worked closely with the Y, accessibility is one of their top concerns, but their current building cannot accommodate visitors w/mobility impairments–it is an embarrassment to the Y. The only solution will be a new building.

As to the beaches and sidewalks, have you ever tried to access the lake from a wheelchair? Burlington lacks any wheelchair-friendly accommodation to the lake and the well-lit sidewalks may be lit but not very wheelchair friendly during the winter months.

I don’t mean to sermonize, but it is just this insensitive lack of awareness that keeps Vermonters with disabilities as second-class citizens without the same rights and opportunities as the larger population. While Burlington prides itself on being “progressive” and “liberal” it is in the dark ages concerning accessibility and disability rights.

Let’s keep the dialogue going…

Old timey Burlington, Vermont

As a father of a 1st grader who depends on his wheelchair to get around this city, I can only add… Amen Patrick.

Neighbors Rein in Traffic

Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 by • 1 comment

Too many cars and trucks driving too fast… that’s a problem that’s been plaguing residential areas since the Model T. But it’s getting worse. Americans own more cars per capita than ever before and we’re spending more time behind the wheel too… and if I had a couple minutes to spare I’d find some references to back up those claims.

And so a collective response by neighbors to rein in traffic must have started back in Henry Ford’s time too.

Now we’re seeing a new twist on it. Neighbors are using Front Porch Forum to talk about traffic problems and work on fixes. Some Burlington examples:

1. Residents along Home and Flynn Avenues bear a heavy load with truck traffic. They’ve posted dozens of messages on their neighborhood forum about this issue as it relates to the Southern Connector (both for and against, as well as some interesting middle-ground ideas). They also worked with one of their City Councilors to improve the signage regarding use of the ear-splitting jake brakes by trucks.

2. Birchcliff had a nightly speeder. One post on their neighborhood forum and the police stopped the offender that same night… problem solved.

3. Five Sisters residents were concerned about downhill traffic as it sped past South/Calahan Park on Locust St. Working with the Dept. of Public Works, traffic calming features were incorporated into the street.

4. Killarney Dr in the New North End… residents are concerned with teenager speeders exiting onto North Ave. A neighbor who is a police officer used the forum to encourage neighbors to identify the problem drivers and talk to their parents directly.

5. Lots of other neighborhoods have used their neighborhood forum to start conversations and eventually enter into DPW’s formal traffic calming process.

Concerned about traffic in your area? Post a note to your neighborhood forum and see if others feel the same way. Getting organized is a first step to finding a reasonable solution.

Amazing Tools and Content at Harvard

Posted on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 by • 1 comment

What a delight! I just returned from a couple days in Cambridge, MA… invited to participate at a Harvard workshop about innovative local uses of the internet, focusing on politics. The event was hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Sunlight Foundation. About 50 people were invited from around the country.

About half of the speakers were content providers, mostly local and state-level political bloggers. The other half were online tool developers focused on improving public access to information about state and federal legislatures. I strongly recommend checking out what I was lucky enough to see. Some of the participants have kindly blogged and wiki-ed about it already…
David Weinberger, Ethan Zuckerman, David Gillmor, Campaigns Wikia… and others, I’m sure. Try Technorati (photos too).

On the one hand we had bloggers generating great content about fairly narrow topics. On the other were people developing incredible tools for drilling into all sort of data and stories about what’s really going on behind the scenes in Congress and the statehouses. Most of the folks in both these camps shared one challenge… engaging a wide-enough audience.

So Front Porch Forum was met with curiosity and interest. We’re building surprisingly high participation numbers when viewed from a geographical per capita perspective. Lots of great questions and leads. I need to explore more of what was on display. More later, perhaps.

Thanks to Berkman and Sunlight for bringing me to this wonderful event, and to all my colleagues for sharing their projects and insights. A hopeful way to spend the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. By the way, snow in Vermont kept me in Cambridge/Somerville an extra night… a local cousin came to my rescue!

Why you don’t have running Water

Posted on Thursday, January 4, 2007 by • No comments yet

Cathy Resmer writes today on 802 Online about one hopeful prediction for a resurgence of local news and community newspapers in 2007. She quotes a Seattle Times writer:

The story of the death of the Valley Daily News is that it blew it when it combined with its partner, the Bellevue Journal-American, into one amorphous, suburban blob.

Small is beautiful, eh? She shares the Times guy’s opinion about the value of local news, but wonders about the medium:

I do, however, see more and more people signing up for the Front Porch Forum service. I just recommended it to someone today. It’s not a newspaper, but it’s a great way to share local information. For example, yesterday my forum included an item from the Winooski City Engineer, explaining the water leak that’s developed on my street. I don’t know how else the city would have communicated that to me, other than sending out an email. The Free Press wouldn’t have covered it in the same way.

Of course, FPF in no way replaces good investigative journalism, but at least it helps neighbors communicate. I don’t know why the city hasn’t come up with a service like this on its own. It seems like a no-brainer.

Indeed, we’re seeing more local officials using Front Porch Forum to share news with their citizens, like the good souls in Winooski. And rarely do our postings resemble citizen journalism. Front Porch Forum helps neighbors connect and foster community within neighborhoods.

Local Politics Online

Posted on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 by • No comments yet

Many of the neighborhoods that use Front Porch Forum end up with some of their local officials on their online forum. Ten neighborhoods in Ward 5 of Burlington, Vermont, for example, have the following on board: 2 state reps., 2 city councilors, 2 school board members, and various city officials, such as a police lieutenant and a community development specialist.

Officials report to their constituents on hot topics. If they wander too far off the path and get into politics (vs. reporting on things), then they usually hear about it directly or through the neighborhood forums (so that lots of other citizens see the rejoinder too)… so they tread carefully. Taxpayers also toss questions to the officials through the forums… “I wonder if our city councilor can report on the status of the construction along Pine Street?”

Today The Local Onliner reported on an interesting development:

OhioElects performs targeted searches of state, local and national political Web sites as part of its broader political coverage. Hundreds of sites have been crawled and indexed in the site’s first go-round. The site itself hopes to serve as a portal for all types of contextual political advertising.

Further, I recently accepted an invitation to participate in a session at Harvard later this month focused on the internet’s role in local politics. The event is co-hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Sunlight Foundation. I don’t think it’s online anywhere yet.

Burlington Telecom or Vermont Telecom?

Posted on Thursday, December 21, 2006 by • No comments yet

Much of Vermont is rural and therefore not uniformly well served by the bigshots of broadband, such as Verizon and Comcast. Peter Freyne interviewed the Speaker of the Vermont House, Gaye Symington today:

“It’s clear now, that waiting for the private sector to focus on Vermont and hook us all up to broadband is simply not a viable option.” The Speaker said the state should look at what the City of Burlington is currently doing – steadily proceeding to lay fiber to every door in the city (Burlington Telecom) providing broadband, telephone and cable TV service: “We’re dealing with something that’s on the scale of rural electrification. There’s going to have to be some creative thinking here that goes beyond just tax incentives and waiting around for the private sector.”

Neighborhood as Trade Association

Posted on Monday, December 4, 2006 by • No comments yet

Trade associations form when a group of businesses in the same field feel a need to work together to (1) get a better shake from government and/or (2) get group discounts from the vendors that serve them. Professional societies serve the same purpose for individuals. Last I recall, the United States has an incredible number of these organizations. That’s how you get things done… find a group with common interests to yours, then work together to lobby government and twist the arms of your common business partners (yes, they also provide training, issue credentials, market the industry, etc.).

I’ve been in and around such entities for much of my career in Washington, DC (trade associations central) and more recently in Vermont (where I ran a 30-employee association of utilities).

Now in launching Front Porch Forum, I’ll be darned if I don’t find myself on familiar ground. This past week, a neighborhood forum in Williston bustled with talk of neighbors banding together to muscle a bulk discount from a trash hauler. Previously, a forum in Shelburne discussed a group discount on home heating oil. Neighbors in Burlington have connected through their forum to split cords of firewood. Another group of neighbors jointly purchased a power leaf mulcher. Plenty of potential to save a buck using your forum to organize a group of neighbors to get some leverage. I wonder what’ll be next?

Using neighborhood forums to political ends… that’s even more common. Burlington forums debate the Southern Connector highway project. Williston forums heat up over the proposed landfill. Our neighborhood’s phone service used to cut out during every hard rain… for years… decades. Our forum got folks mobilized and making calls (when the sun shined!). Now we have new poles and lines and great service. We have a similar story about our old nearly impassable sidewalks… replaced now with concrete the envy of every trike rider in town.

Need to mobilize your neighborhood? Try Front Porch Forum.

Need a Crowd at your Event?

Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 by • No comments yet

Anyone who organizes public gatherings knows how hard it can be to attract a good showing of local folks (unless major controversy erupts). Some thinkers reason that people just don’t care these days or they’re too busy.

I’m beginning to wonder if it’s more a case of the message being drowned out by the din of competing media… too much information swarming around us. Posting an announcement on the city’s website and in the local newspaper does not mean people will notice and act.

So it’s compelling that reports are piling up of people using Front Porch Forum to gather crowds for events. No single example impresses, but taken together…

1. Newly (re)elected State Representatives for South Burlington held a meeting this week to solicit input from their consituents. One incumbent reported “the majority of folks who got there did so through Front Porch Forum notification as contrasted to the notice in the [local daily newspaper].”

2. Burlington’s several Neighborhood Planning Assemblies meet monthly and provide an important community link to city government and are involved in many valuable projects. Recently, a city staffer who has attended countless such meetings reported the largest turnout ever. While the agenda contained a couple of hot issues, the sense was that a fraction of the crowd would have shown up if not for the new set of neighborhood forums covering that part of town.

3. My neighborhood is blessed with a great park. A concerned neighbor reported tonight that the Parks and Rec department may significantly change a portion of the park, and he posted the date and time for the public input meeting (first I’ve heard of it). I’m guessing this will be the next example of a big turnout generated through a Front Porch Forum posting.

Lots of other examples of neighbors pulling neighbors into local government goings on. In a way, this is using the internet to increase citizen participation in public policy and to hold officials accountable. That’s similar to the Sunlight Foundation‘s mission. I met with it’s National Director, Zephyr Teachout, today (still digesting the spread of ideas she laid out!). The Sunlight folks focus on citizens using the internet to press for transparency and accountability in the U.S. Congress. Amen!

Ultimately though, Front Porch Forum is about helping neighbors connect and foster community. Other benefits, like engaging your city councilor about property taxes, are an important bonus.

About Blog

Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more

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