Briefs
Group think
One Community finds many new ways to get people involved
By Jake Armstrong 11/05/2009
Can a small group of well-informed residents change Pasadena? The creators of a new online community think tank believe so, and they’re going to give Margaret Mead a run for her money to find out.
In operation for about a month, onecommunitythinktank.ning.com offers a place for residents to voice concerns about issues in the Crown City in hopes of inciting action to address those issues, say its creators, community activist Ralph McKnight and Councilman Chris Holden.
But unlike traditional think tanks, One Community won’t be advocating solutions to particular issues, but will instead serve as a clearinghouse for information and opinions residents can use to address issues on their own, McKnight said.
"It’s a way of arming people with all the things they need to assert themselves,” he said.
So far users have been introducing themselves to the site’s roughly 100 members, posting local job openings and identifying local heroes they believe are worthy of praise. They were also discussing how Pasadena fits into the emerging “green” economy, prompted by a forum held Saturday at Pasadena City College, which drew about 200 people and was the first in a series of symposiums planned in connection with the Web site.
That online dialogue led many of the Web site’s users to the forum, where they heard from experts about the type and number of green jobs available now and anticipated in the coming years. Representatives from Edison and the Foothill Workforce Investment Board, a regional career center, were also on hand accepting job applications.
That’s exactly what McKnight said he wanted to happen, and the attendance and activity at the inaugural forum is an encouraging sign that the Web site is finding a place in the community.
“We were very, very much inspired,” McKnight said.
One Community is a follow up to One Pasadena, a nonprofit Holden and McKnight founded to foster interaction between neighborhoods. Holden said it could bring many new opinions and voices into the discourse on issues facing the city through social networking, far removed from the usual civic process.
“After all the years I’ve been on the council, you feel that it all begins and ends with the council,” said Holden, who is currently serving his sixth four-year term in office. This approach, he said, involves “bringing the community together to help solve the community’s problems and figuring things out in a comfortable way … a different way.”
While different, social networking is nothing new. Yahoo Groups, Meetup.com and other sites for years have offered an online venue for people to share ideas or pursue their interests on and off-line. But now people are using similar platforms to address issues in their own community, getting “a lot more organized with a lot less effort,” said Robert Hernandez, an assistant professor of online media at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. “This technology has compensated for the disconnect that many people feel with mainstream news outlets, especially newspapers,” Hernandez said.
If it catches on, a Web site like One Community could help transform residents with little time to devote to the traditional civic process — often lengthy public hearings and tedious council meetings — into experts in their community, Hernandez said. Tthe Web has the power to effectively mobilize even a few dozen people, especially on the local level, he said. “It’s not a big number, but when you are looking at 70 people that are immediately around you … there is something energetic there that is empowering for a community.”
Following the money
Robert Stern says California is in major need of political reform
California’s government is in such a mess after six years of The Governator that rumors are afoot about a constitutional convention to address a broad array of reform proposals.
President of the Center for Governmental Studies and co-author of the state’s Political Reform Act of 1974, Robert Stern has spent much of his adult life trying to limit the seductive role money plays in policy-making, and tracking corporate contributions to politicians who all too often allow big spenders to influence their votes.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the ACLU Pasadena/Foothill chapter presents a free public forum featuring Stern and LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik discussing how various proposals to save the state from ruin might work out.
The event takes place at 7 p.m. at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church, 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena. For more info, email aclupasadena@yahoo.com.
— Carl Kozlowski
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