Wicomico Neighborhood Congress – September 2007

Last night was the inaugural meeting of the Wicomico Neighborhood Congress. While 150 invitations were sent out across the county, it was a hardy band of about 55 who showed up. After everyone signed in, we were welcomed by the Steering Committee Chairman, Jim Ireton.

Jim treated those who didn’t know to a brief rehash of the trials and tribulations of putting together the WNC then turned it over to the keynote speaker:

In his remarks Rick used the birth of the Allen Volunteer Fire Company out of a tragedy as an example of how a community can pull together for the benefit of all, much like the goal of the Wicomico Neighborhood Congress. He also said that there were few neighborhood problems that hadn’t been faced before, and that he hoped participation in the WNC would be a “rich, rewarding experience” as we “do our part as citizens”, making ‘from heres’ and ‘come heres’ want to be ‘stay heres.’ We also had a welcome from Amy Hasson of Salisbury University, who briefly spoke about her experience with neighborhood groups.

Then the meeting was turned over to three local citizens with experience in running neighborhood associations.

The three pictured above (Tim Spies, Susan Carey, and John Cannon) have been involved in their associations for years. Spies talked mainly about how the Camden Neighborhood Association used some of the grant money it received through the Weed and Seed program to improve its public spaces, while Carey focused more on the issues of crime and vacant houses that her Johnson’s Lake area faced. Cannon focused more on the legal ins and outs of a neighborhood group like by-laws, covenants, community infrastructure repair, and other maladies that a group like his at Nutter’s Crossing ran into from time to time.

Putting together a group such as the WNC can be a painful and slow process. In one respect, the steering committee punted a few basic items down the road a bit, like establishing their own by-laws and rules. The proposed charter was meant as a temporary stopgap for the organization’s first year until it gets settled in.

Really the only issue I have with the charter is under Goals and Strategies. I’ll write the offending paragraph with a strikethrough on the parts I don’t like and suggest a change in bold.

The mission of the WNC shall be pursued through a grassroots organization, consisting of neighborhood associations, allied entities, and individuals, with emphasis on geographic, racial, and economic diversity representing the whole of Wicomico County. Its strategies shall focus on:

a. education of our citizens in the tools of citizenship;

b. organization of neighborhoods to achieve a common purpose;

c. empowerment to change conditions needing change; and

d. advocacy to urge government and/or the power of private enterprise to address neighborhood concerns.

After that and a brief treasurer’s report, it was finally time to start discussing problems. Before we started, those in attendance were asked to fill out a survey ranking what they saw as the largest problems in Wicomico County. Here’s the list as I have it:

1. Crime
2. Jobs
3. Slum/Blight
4. Gangs
5. Code Compliance
6. Roads
7. Schools
8. Emergency Services
9. Traffic
10. Wells
11. Street Lights
12. Stormwater
13. Internet
14. Local TV stations

We broke into five groups at that point to discuss a number of issues. Each group was issued a pair of boards, one to write down problems and one for solutions. Here are examples.

I chose to join in the discussion on growth and development, since I have a little bit of expertise on the subject and I also thought that I’d be the voice of reason in the group since it was apparent from the tone of previous discussions that we had a few anti-growth zealots among us. But we had a productive 20 minutes or so. I did make my pitch for getting our group involved with putting together the next comprehensive plan as one way to address sprawl.

I do have to comment though on something stated on a board above. Number 3 on the “solutions” board states, “expose SAPOA for what they are (lobby group to further rental industry interests).” Yet the WNC charter wants us to be an advocacy group, too. I know there’s a number of slumlords out there, but like it or not Salisbury does have a thriving rental market so we need to be a little more for cooperation and less for confrontation. However, these boards will be “living” boards and will be at each WNC meeting to promote discussion so perhaps we’ll have input on other solutions too.

It was interesting to me how the political dynamic worked there. Monday night I had my share of seeing Republicans, while last night (except for John Cannon, Orphans’ Court Judge Bill Smith, and one WCRC member I know on the WNC) it was pretty much a Democrat show as you’ll see below. Again, I suppose I fit in as the voice of reason. 🙂

However, while we are probably pretty far apart on the political scale, I have to hand it to this lady for her hard work:

We also know now that our next meeting will be sometime in November out in Hebron, and the topic naturally will be growth and development. So that ought to create a few fireworks. Future meetings will cover the topic of crime (January) and environment (March.) In the meantime, I have a little work to do in my own neighborhood now that I’ve gotten the Straw Poll out of the way.