Guest Column: Allowing two associations in one neighborhood was bad decision
Whether your side won or not, the fall election reaffirmed the power of democracy. An inspiring turnout of Americans made a decision to elect new leadership, and our nation moved on with its business.
Unfortunately, a recent move by our city council did not reaffirm democracy at the local level. While I understand that our city council members faced a difficult situation, their recent decision to allow two neighborhood associations within the territorial boundaries of the North Central Neighborhood Association may spell disaster for Columbia’s neighborhood associations.
The decision opened the door to multiple, competing associations within the same jurisdiction. Now, whenever contentious issues arise, opposing forces may opt to start their own associations instead of working through a democratic process to find a workable compromise. After all, why compromise when you can run your own show?
New neighborhood associations may soon sprout up all over town to promote various agendas in regard to such issues as business practices, economic development, environmental awareness and recreational trails. When the situation devolves into rival neighborhood associations promoting opposing views regarding abortion, religion, gun control and capital punishment, we may as well kiss neighborhood associations goodbye.
The events that led to the creation of the Shoe Factory District Neighborhood Association within the North Central Columbia Neighborhood Association’s boundaries apparently were based in long-held personality conflicts and a lack of desire to forge compromise over the issue of an urban conservation overlay district. These are precisely the sort of situations for which democratic deliberative bodies have been designed, and that is what neighborhood associations were meant to be. For the good of the rest of the city, rather than gutting the North Central association, it would have been best to resolve the problem using the association’s existing democratic processes.
Our neighborhood associations need more democracy, not less. They are meant to be quasi-governmental, deliberative bodies with the power to submit resolutions to the City Council for consideration. In effect, they should be viewed as standing committees recognized by city government to provide a voice for specific neighborhoods.
Unfortunately, that role has never been codified adequately, and the City Council tends to treat them as just another ill-defined group of petitioners filing a complaint. Instead, the council ought to beef up the associations’ democratic processes so that they become the grassroots decision-making machines they were meant to be.
As small democratic bodies, they must operate according to a strict set of bylaws. While attempting to impose bylaws would be unwise, the city could offer standards that could be adapted to the specific needs of each association.
Neighborhood associations should be run according to Robert’s Rules of Order, should keep accurate and exact records of decisions and motions made, should impose practical membership rules based on property ownership within a defined jurisdiction and should set quorum rules to ensure that decisions aren’t made by a mere handful of people.
My own association’s quorum rule is laughable, “two officers and any other members present,” and I intend to propose a change at our next annual meeting. It worries me that my vice chair and I could meet at a bar and, after throwing down a few too many beers, vote to secede from the city.
Because leadership sometimes forgets the need for democratic forms, too many neighborhood associations devolve into disorganized mob meetings, coffee clubs or commissariats dominated by one or a few individuals. In the past, my association has come close to falling into similar traps, but Bartlett Jones and his cohorts did a pretty good job when they designed the Shepard Boulevard Neighborhood Association’s bylaws in the 1990s so that we have never strayed from the path of democracy.
This summer, with its 58-to-32 vote on the Crosscreek mediation agreement, possibly the largest turnout in the history of our organization, the association showed the value of healthy democratic processes. As one of those who voted against the agreement, losing was painful, but the system worked. The majority spoke, the association made its decision, and we moved on. That’s democracy.
But I shudder at what might have happened if our association had split into two entities, each promoting its own viewpoint. There would have been no decision, no end in sight to the conflict, and no compromise.
We need to remember that principled disagreement on important issues is healthy and that compromise in decision-making is good. Democracy is designed to make decisions and find compromise between opposing points of view. When I hear somebody say, “It would be ever so much better if we only had more unity,” I want to scream, “No! That’s not democracy! That’s fascism!”
In a democracy, it is your duty to speak up for an idea about which you believe strongly. Disagreements are the starting points from which people forge compromises through a fair democratic process. In the end, nobody is particularly satisfied with the outcome because nobody completely got his or her way. That’s good. That’s healthy. That’s democracy.
Unfortunately, this recent city council decision will ultimately lead to less compromise and less grassroots democracy in our neighborhood associations, and that is a shame.
Remember, our constitution was forged in compromise between James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, resulting in a document that included the Bill of Rights at Jefferson’s insistence. We need to follow their example even at the local level, tackling issues in the democratic spirit of compromise rather than forming new organizations merely to promote individual agendas.
Jim Muench is president of Far West Enterprises, chairman of Shepard Boulevard Neighborhood Association and a CBT contributor. He can be reached at [email protected]