Is the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association still relevant to the community? It seems the neighborhood is reaching a point of growth where most of us can move forward without the support of OSHNA. However OSHNA needs to exist in some form. I think of OSHNA as the neighborhoods 911 and you call them up when the neighborhood is facing a serious challenge or decision.
Until that challenge arises OSHNA should be in stand-by mode. They could continue to throw a few events and show up to city meetings. But day-to-day OSHNA do not concern most of us. I think that is the view most of us already have of OSHNA.
OSHNA has become a parade of foolish stubborn people which are divided beyond repair. The trust between the active~50 OSHNA members is gone and everyone wants something for themselves or their constituency of friends.
Our neighborhood activists have over inflated egos and think their side is the only side of righteousness. The activists have let the asshole in them flourish as they continue to taint the neighborhood’s good name. Regardless of your stance, you are acting like douche bags.
OSHNA do we need you? Not really. When Steve Gluckman passed it seemed that OSHNA did too. Not that I always agreed with Steve but he preserved the heart and good name of OSHNA. Everyone has their ass in a knot over elections or how to properly represent Old Seminole Heights. The whole preservation aspect of Seminole Heights was essentially discarded.
I know that I am not helping OSHNA by posting this article. But let’s be realistic they did it to themselves. Are my hands clean? Nope, but at the end of the day OSHNA is at the bottom of my list of priorities. Which is why I continue to refuse to accept any committee positions within OSHNA. Maybe one day people will figure out their neighborhood title entitles themselves to two things: jack and shit.
Please don’t get this post confused with anger. I am in a wonderful mood and looking forward to great evening of karaoke at the American Legion. In case you are wondering what is relevant to me, its three things; football, beer and buffalo wings.
Old Seminole Heights resident.
I wholeheartedly agree with Shawn. We have too many people who would like to use the association to put a stamp on their personal opinion or ambitions. Each board member should be thinking about the neighborhood when they send letters to city council. Last year, we made a point of controlling our message and working with the city. Mary Mulhern and I had a great conversation about the role of neighborhood associations. It is dangerous and unproductive when they start to act as the lower house of city council. Some, of course, don’t agree with this and tell us “they know what’s best for the neighborhood”.
The one thing I have learned about this neighborhood is that once you get the information out to them, they will act on it. We’ve had several instances where we have packed city council chambers by simply getting the word out. Isn’t it better to find ways to let people speak for themselves rather than have a system where a few speak for the many?
Jeff Harmon
In my elections speech last October, I told the assembled OSHNA membership that OSHNA needs to do a better job reaching out to its four corners and getting more opinion and input. Without doing this, we diminish our ability to say “we speak for the neighborhood.” Until we do this, in fact, you will never hear me say that phrase and might catch me giving odd looks to people who do.
Last year, I talked up an idea that was picked up by two dynamic members and turned into the “Information and Outreach” committee. My hope for this committee was that we would be able to reach out to those four corners and gather the information we required. Alas, the efforts of the committee were stonewalled by members who felt threatened by its mission and budget concerns combined with graduate school obligations finished it off. This year, we are making another try at getting this committee off the ground.
What does this have to do with OSHNA’s relevance? Glad you asked.
If a small group of concerned citizens gets together to take on a project, they are unknown to the residents. If a resident wanted to know more information about, say, the Starbucks project and knew about OSHNA, they would have a place to go ask for information. They’d have a place they could join up and affect the outcome, if they so wished. However, if the Starbuck’s project was championed (for or against) by a private assembly of residents, it would be very difficult for a resident to seek information from that group; they probably wouldn’t even know they existed. This could lead to several groups of concerned citizens all reaching out separately telling Starbucks different things, and they’d end up working against each other. Most importantly, these active residents with nothing but the best of intentions in mind, are taking action without knowing what the rest of the neighborhood wants. They cannot speak for anyone but themselves. What would have happened if a small, private group of well-meaning neighbors struck a deal with Starbucks that surprised and angered the nearby residents?
In a previous thread, Dirk Peters makes a comment about how there are only a small group of active people that make OSHNA work. He’s both right and wrong here. Yes, there is an active core group (that grows annually, by the way) but there is also a larger community of people who read the newsletter, show up to meetings, and communicate with volunteers directly. OSHNA has the resources to get information out to a larger group of people. The last newsletter went to more than 25% of the homes in Old Seminole Heights, for example. The Bungalow Alert system has over 700 local, opt-in email addresses on it. This reach is broader and more varied than blogs and certainly more than small groups of private activists can muster. That is relevant.
As projects come on the radar, OSHNA has in the past few years taken greater steps to organize public “town hall” style meetings and invite all residents. The last was the one at the John Calvin church to meet with CVS. This is a forum for anyone to voice their opinion and get involved on a personal basis, not just the core group of OSHNA volunteers or any other private collection of residents. This is real community activism, when you get the whole community involved. That is relevant.
Back to my original point on how I can not speak for the neighborhood. Most, but not all, of the folks attending the CVS “town hall” meeting are regular activists/volunteers in the neighborhood. Nearly all have volunteered for OSHNA at one point or another. Through outreach, OSHNA needs to broaden the attendees at these meetings and provide more voices and more varied opinions. We need non-volunteers to show up and speak out on their own behalf. Assembling that kind of venue is probably the most relevant thing any neighborhood association or other activist group can do. That is something OSHNA has done in the past and I hope will continue to do in the future.
I don’t speak for the neighborhood, but with a little hard work, I can get the neighborhood to speak for itself, which is even better.
I just can’t let a brazen, shameless attempt at revisionism go unchallenged.
It might have credibility if Mr. Harmon had been around 20 years ago for his account but he wasn’t, and revisionism among this group runs amuck. Opposition was created by many issues. Arrogance gave them common cause. If anyone has been marginalized it was those outside Mr. Harmon’s approved circle. You reached out to everyone but your neighbors whom you marginalized.
What is that tune? “don’t cry for me…”.
My mom would have called them “crocodile tears”
Essentially, I think you are correct that Steve’s passing changed the dynamic. However, the tension was growing before. The board just managed to keep these dust ups under cover, perhaps lurking beneath the surface. Interestingly, it was one of Steve’s pet projects, having a local historic district in Hampton Terrace, which created part of the “other guy” or opposition group. Turned out there were many people in opposition to this and they were willing to do just about anything to stop any and all debate.
When Steve’s replacement went to the “old guard”, Evan St. Ives, someone who helped build this association 20 years ago, a lot of hand wringing from the “new guard” started. Change was not happening fast enough. These former board members tried to exert an influence on the existing board. There was a lot of infighting and divisiveness. As a member of the younger group (not allied with “the new guard”), I approached Evan St. Ives to see what could be done. From him I learned that Doreen Dibona and Bill Hunter were frustrated at the lack of communication and felt marginalized. Evan and I approached Susan Long, then president, to voice our concerns and ask for a board workshop. At this workshop, which caused a lot of ire from former board members who wanted a seat at that table, seven of us developed a working relationship (the old guard plus Carlos Gomez, Eric Krause, and Helen Kynes). That event, as I later learned, put a target on my back as I had dared to cross the line. They are good people, the old guard, every last one of them and they have dedicated years of service to this community.
For many years, perhaps forever, there’s been attempts to control the composition of the board, especially who became Vice President since that signaled who was in the succession to become the next president. My being Vice President presented a problem to those former board members who wanted back on the board in their old positions and who didn’t like the new found independence of this board. They formed common cause with those in opposition to the local historic district in Hampton Terrace. They created a separate slate of candidates, one for every position on the board and made it clear that they were set to overturn every position that didn’t agree with them. Doreen got a call from a gentleman who told her that he wanted to join so that he could vote for this slate. She asked him to read the names and he read them not realizing that he was talking to a current member and candidate. We then got together and agreed to mutually support each other, formed our own slate, sent out the notorious post card and the rest is history.
I suppose we could have backed down. It has been suggested to me that had Christy Hess and Randy Baron been elected back to the board, we wouldn’t have had any trouble. I certainly underestimated how hard they would take it. I guess we know now. There was someone dressed as a clown with a sandwich sign at the last election meeting. How much lower can it go?
How would Steve Gluckman have changed this? I think Steve was well enough known and widely respected that he could have changed this dynamic. I know for a fact that he felt the mission of this association was Historic Preservation. This concept has now become threatened to the point where saying the word “Historic” in some committees and board meetings leads to heated arguments. I also know that Steve was very disappointed at the attack on Doreen Dibona in 2004. That was an executive board melt down that presaged the present problems. Lastly, Steve was friends with several of the people who are now in opposition. They meet all the time at Starbucks. Steve hated Starbucks. The day it opened, he came and got a free coffee and told me it was the worst day of his life. Would Steve have liked people running for board positions that never had set foot in a board meeting let alone a committee? I doubt it.
So. Is OSHNA relevant since Steve passed away? I think so. We produced the Documentary since then and that was a wild success and helped this neighborhood win awards. It’s so relevant that it garners all this animosity to control it. We’re so relevant that it’s worthy of a news story every time something happens. That’s almost comical. I predicted last year that the strategy of this opposition group was to “burn the house down to save the ashes”. All chaos that is possible, like splitting off Hampton Terrace from OSHNA. The anti-Historic District people would like that because they think it would stop the historic district process (a city process that will proceed regardless, as has been explained ad nauseum). The opposition would like it because Evan, Shawn and myself would be out of the equation. Level any and all accusations. Charge the board with embezzlement. Threaten lawsuits and then accuse the board of threatening lawsuits. The most recent board meetings have been nothing short of chaos. What will happen is the good people, the volunteers, will go apply their efforts somewhere else. Those who like to fight, who are at home with tension, who have a personal agenda, will be at home. Last year, when we were having so much trouble, I reached out to a number of other neighborhood associations and learned that they had gone through similar problems. Everything I mentioned the reply came “been there, done that”. One president in New York told me it was too painful to talk about.
This all makes me sad and used to depress me. It helped me shed about 60 lbs over the last year. One thing I have learned is to focus on the essential, on those things I like to do. I like the Great Neighborhood Yard Sale, so I do that. I like the Christmas Concert, so I do that. If you like to go to city council, go do that. Don’t force other people to go do it. OSHNA has probably appeared before city council more than any other association. What is this obsession with city council? If more people would do things that they like to do, I think we’d all be better off. The neighborhood, the association and the world.
OSHNA, current drama aside, fills a need. These organizations exist all over the country and manage to stay "relevant" on a daily basis. Civic associations perform a function, sometimes just a place to keep the "strong personalities" engaged in something other than yelling at city council. Without describing what functions a civic association performs and what has changed to make it no longer relevant in performing those functions, I don't see how asking such a question can be, well, relevant.
I remember Steve quite clearly, as do many, because he was eccentric and opinionated and stubborn. We miss him, as we do anyone that makes their mark on our life, but he wasn't the glue that held this neighborhood together any more than any single character currently involved in OSHNA (or against it) can be. Steve would have laughed had someone painted him as essential.
The association is not "divided beyond repair." All it would take is for everyone to take a step back and relax a bit. If most of us did that, just promised to not get involved in the drama and watch what happened, we'd see the 99% that Cara mentions stop with us. The remaining 1% who refuse to quit only have power if they think we support them.
It's that easy. Just stop.
Tommy:
Did you say they can continue giving parties and going to city council? They haven't been to city council on most issues in over a year. Digital signs? Nope, no one from OHNA. Code rewrite? Nope, no one from OHNA. Electric Fences in the 'hood? Nope, no one from OSHNA! OSHNA throws parties and that's about it. It is irrelevant. If the residents are concerned, they gang together and get things done. OSHNA is so busy giving parties and explaining why they're doing malicious things to various people – Dirk among them – that they forgot what OSHNA was supposed to do. When you go to a board meeting and someone sits in the back saying nasties about anyone except the OSHNA 9 – now 6 – OSHNA is dead!
Tommy, I agree with you to some extent…things did seem to decline noticeably after Steve’s passing. I think some goals and ideas were dropped to the wayside in favor of…who knows what? I have not been terribly involved in the happenings; really by choice, I have read the news stories and the blogs and followed, but I choose not to choose, if that makes sense. I think the issue lies with a very small number of people within a large organization, and I think the majority of the residents (members and non members) have the best intentions for the neighborhood in their hearts. I do not blame anyone, I know the parties involved and have no problem with any of them. I choose to just be positive and trust that 99% (or even 99.5%) of the residents in our wonderful neighborhood wants nothing but the best for everyone. I choose to believe that no one involved in this mess really had any ill will towards anyone and they were really trying to protect what they thought needed to be protected. I think some focus might have been lost after Steve’s passing…and some ideas (not people, ideas) lost their way a little, then the old “fight or flight” mentality kicks in and viola….disagreements are born. Steve was kind of a cornerstone for our neighborhood…a guiding light, if you will. This is really the first time the board has not relied on guidence (welcome or not) from him, so in the process of spreading the wings a bit, contradiction was born. I’m not saying this is all due to Steve not being here, but I think his passing may have been a sort of catalyst for new ideas which might have been supressed previously. I have a great deal of respect for everyone in this neighborhood, as we all share at least one thing – a love of this neighborhood, what it was and what it can be. I think we should all try to focus on the positives and move beyond this stuff; the new year starts in a few weeks…let’s not go into the new year with these bad feelings. Good things are happening in our neighborhood…let’s focus on that.