Published Niagara Gazette, Friday, July 12, 2019
I’m running for Mayor and I need your help.
Make that statement and you’ve got someone’s attention. And I want your attention. Because we have a challenge on our hands and it needs your help.
Ten years ago I was a semi-public persona. I hosted a live television call-in show for three hours every week, wrote a newspaper column which ran in four papers, and was fortunate enough to know what seemed like every resident in Erie and Niagara counties by name. It was a great time and I enjoyed it immensely. Although I stepped away, got an MBA degree and worked for some great organizations, the calls from people offering comments about the community never stopped. I’m still getting calls ten years later. It seems we lit a fire of imagination and that fire never went out.
If there was any crumb of success to the TV show or newspaper columns it was that together, we were seeking an answer to one question: how do government, business and people fit into the puzzle that makes something a community. And regularity was key. We asked this same question every week. Ask any professional – repetition matters most in perfection.
Because people never stopped calling, I’ve never stopped thinking about how we piece together the perfect parts that become a vibrant community. And since my greatest gift is being curious, I genuinely want to know what others think would make a perfect community. If you take to heart the old saying that all of us are smarter than any of us, then we need to coordinate the thoughts and idea’s of everyone.
There is a formal name to this type of discussion and it’s called Civics. And civics is not necessarily coming up with a plan, but getting everyone to understand that you play a role in that plans success. There are clearly defined benefits but also clearly defined tasks for each of us. The Mayor of a community plays a role, but only a single role. You play just as vital a role.
Civics in the grand conception is nothing new, but it’s being tossed around lately like it’s the newest shiny object to distract us. What big thinkers like John Locke said in 1662 is certainly important, but when the reality is that contemporary politicians are being indicted, your street looks like a lunar landscape and the major suggestion for societal improvement is for you to pay a higher garbage tax, who can afford to care about philosophy. What we need is a civics discussion that hits closer to home.
It’s the perfect time to turn civics on its head. To get civics out of the dusty textbooks and into our daily lives.
Niagara Falls may be the most perfect incubator for a civics-in-action experiment. It’s got every single economic tool at its disposal to become a vibrant city, a virtual cash machine for government, and a garden of eden for people who want to live in paradise. I’m not kidding. And I don’t have a clue how to make that a reality. But I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that all the necessary ingredients are in place for an eden beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and I know there are other people who do have the answers. It is going to be our job to seek them out, introduce them to each other, and get them all on the same page. The talent pool is unbelievable, the economic tools are plentiful and the location is perfect.
I needed to open by saying I’m running for mayor and I need your help – because that’s where our brains are wired lately. We’re a reality show culture and running for mayor instantly paints a picture in your mind. But what we need is a focol point around an idea, not a four year term. I don’t have an agenda other than to ask why. Why is the city what it is today. Why have various decisions been made. And most of all, why isn’t Niagara Falls already the garden of eden we know it should be. Until we know the answers to why, we can’t move on to what. What can the city become. What are its major assets. Most of all, what do people expect the city to become. Because expectations are everything.
This also needed a name/face attached with it, and to that I’ve agreed to become said face. But this is NOT a one person quest or question. This is the mission of many of your friends and neighbors.
This project – civics-in-action – needs to play out to some extent in the newspaper. The highest intellect people, the people with the greatest passion, and the people most connected to their community all read the newspaper. Which makes this especially exciting to be back where I was a decade ago, generating dialog through the Niagara Gazette.
The Civics Project is going to be a long process, but we start with the first steps. A 360 review is where that journey begins, and we’ll talk about that next.
I’m running for Mayor and I need your help.
Make that statement and you’ve got someone’s attention. And I want your attention. Because we have a challenge on our hands and it needs your help.
Ten years ago I was a semi-public persona. I hosted a live television call-in show for three hours every week, wrote a newspaper column which ran in four papers, and was fortunate enough to know what seemed like every resident in Erie and Niagara counties by name. It was a great time and I enjoyed it immensely. Although I stepped away, got an MBA degree and worked for some great organizations, the calls from people offering comments about the community never stopped. I’m still getting calls ten years later. It seems we lit a fire of imagination and that fire never went out.
If there was any crumb of success to the TV show or newspaper columns it was that together, we were seeking an answer to one question: how do government, business and people fit into the puzzle that makes something a community. And regularity was key. We asked this same question every week. Ask any professional – repetition matters most in perfection.
Because people never stopped calling, I’ve never stopped thinking about how we piece together the perfect parts that become a vibrant community. And since my greatest gift is being curious, I genuinely want to know what others think would make a perfect community. If you take to heart the old saying that all of us are smarter than any of us, then we need to coordinate the thoughts and idea’s of everyone.
There is a formal name to this type of discussion and it’s called Civics. And civics is not necessarily coming up with a plan, but getting everyone to understand that you play a role in that plans success. There are clearly defined benefits but also clearly defined tasks for each of us. The Mayor of a community plays a role, but only a single role. You play just as vital a role.
Civics in the grand conception is nothing new, but it’s being tossed around lately like it’s the newest shiny object to distract us. What big thinkers like John Locke said in 1662 is certainly important, but when the reality is that contemporary politicians are being indicted, your street looks like a lunar landscape and the major suggestion for societal improvement is for you to pay a higher garbage tax, who can afford to care about philosophy. What we need is a civics discussion that hits closer to home.
It’s the perfect time to turn civics on its head. To get civics out of the dusty textbooks and into our daily lives.
Niagara Falls may be the most perfect incubator for a civics-in-action experiment. It’s got every single economic tool at its disposal to become a vibrant city, a virtual cash machine for government, and a garden of eden for people who want to live in paradise. I’m not kidding. And I don’t have a clue how to make that a reality. But I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that all the necessary ingredients are in place for an eden beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and I know there are other people who do have the answers. It is going to be our job to seek them out, introduce them to each other, and get them all on the same page. The talent pool is unbelievable, the economic tools are plentiful and the location is perfect.
I needed to open by saying I’m running for mayor and I need your help – because that’s where our brains are wired lately. We’re a reality show culture and running for mayor instantly paints a picture in your mind. But what we need is a focol point around an idea, not a four year term. I don’t have an agenda other than to ask why. Why is the city what it is today. Why have various decisions been made. And most of all, why isn’t Niagara Falls already the garden of eden we know it should be. Until we know the answers to why, we can’t move on to what. What can the city become. What are its major assets. Most of all, what do people expect the city to become. Because expectations are everything.
This also needed a name/face attached with it, and to that I’ve agreed to become said face. But this is NOT a one person quest or question. This is the mission of many of your friends and neighbors.
This project – civics-in-action – needs to play out to some extent in the newspaper. The highest intellect people, the people with the greatest passion, and the people most connected to their community all read the newspaper. Which makes this especially exciting to be back where I was a decade ago, generating dialog through the Niagara Gazette.
The Civics Project is going to be a long process, but we start with the first steps. A 360 review is where that journey begins, and we’ll talk about that next.