Statement of Community Values

[Briana Barrett]

I suggest this influence the Best Practices we choose to put forth, or
HOW we put them forth.

I would like to bring our attention to the Statement of Community
Values at http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/input/docs/Statement-of-Community-Values.pdf
which I found by clicking on the link in the part of the text at
http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/input/ called Transition ambassadors

"...wrote a Statement of Community Values based on their answers to
each of the three questions. We collected their Executive Summaries
and compiled them into a PDF for easy viewing."

I like the statement and I think it's useful to let it consciously
influence our scope of input.

I call special attention to the last 3rd of the Statement, with
priorities We the People have announced listed as follows:

"address the budget crisis early in the new administration"
To me, this says we should suggest initiatives that SAVE Seattle money
(which we're good at) and ways for the city to collect and keep more
of our collective tax dollars (does the creation/keep/transition of
more (green) employment mean a wealthier Seattle, or does the City
benefit from income taxes at all?)

"living-wage job creation, with an emphasis on “green jobs” whenever
possible"

"public safety" Our Best Practices connect neighbors. Connected
neighborhoods are safe neighborhoods and save police money (reasoning
from National Night Out, though I couldn't find a quote)

"Others raised youth issues as their number one concern, from
improving the quality of public education to teen programs and youth
violence prevention"

"Improving and increasing transportation choices had broad-based
support" (This reminds me of what Charlie C. was saying in his visit
to our August 10 meeting)

"human services (...) to prevent the least fortunate among us from
falling through the cracks."

[Elizabeth Campbell]

These are really interesting to consider, and I think they fit in well with the four pillars of sustainability. 

For our Belltown group, we are finding that it is important to try to come up with a narrative that indicates the "connectedness" of the values, because when neighborhood organizers focus on one, it's often to the detriment of the others. We're looking for a way that says plainly that our values must lift all:  economic, social, art and environment together. 

I would really like to know more about how the other Sustainable/Transition neighborhoods are handling this juncture of values that S.Belltown is struggling to define and describe in a way that is clear, specific and meaningful to City planners and neighbors alike.

--
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that WE CANNOT EAT MONEY!

[Cathy Tuttle]

Wendell Berry’s 17 Rules For A Sustainable Economy -- these are very
much embedded in our urban Carbon Neutral Neighborhood Values.
(Berry is visiting Seattle 5/24/11 http://lectures.org/season/special_events.php?id=274)
Wendell Berry is a strong defender of family, rural communities, and
traditional family farms. These underlying principles could be
described as the preservation of ecological diversity and integrity,
and the renewal, on sound cultural and ecological principles, of local
economies and local communities:
1.Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do
to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.
2.Always include local nature – the land, the water, the air, the
native creatures – within the membership of the community.
3.Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources,
including the mutual help of neighbors.
4.Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting
products – first to nearby cities, then to others).
5.Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of
‘labor saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of
pollution or contamination.
6.Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products
to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of
national or global economy.
7.Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local
farm and/or forest economy.
8.Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.
9.Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community
for as long as possible before they are paid out.
10.Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within
the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
11.Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its
properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place),
caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
12.See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must
learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There
must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The
community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and
young.
13.Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised.
Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
14.Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded
loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.
15.Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our
time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of
neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
16.A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected
with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
17.A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to
local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will
always be more cooperative than competitive.
Wendell Berry’s The Idea of a Local Economy.

On Aug 12, 9:15 am, Elizabeth Campbell <elizab...@campbellcentral.org>
wrote:

> These are really interesting to consider, and I think they fit in well with
> the four pillars of sustainability.
>
> For our Belltown group, we are finding that it is important to try to come
> up with a narrative that indicates the "connectedness" of the values,
> because when neighborhood organizers focus on one, it's often to the
> detriment of the others. We're looking for a way that says plainly that our
> values must lift all:  economic, social, art and environment together.
>
> I would really like to know more about how the other Sustainable/Transition
> neighborhoods are handling this juncture of values that S.Belltown is
> struggling to define and describe in a way that is clear, specific and
> meaningful to City planners and neighbors alike.
>

> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 12:32 AM, Briana Barrett <humbleb...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > I suggest this influence the Best Practices we choose to put forth, or
> > HOW we put them forth.
>
> > I would like to bring our attention to the Statement of Community
> > Values at

> >http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/input/docs/Statement-of-Community-Values...

[Briana Barrett]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I'd like to mention here the promise Chief Seattle asked we make:
that we teach our children that everything is connected, and that
everything is sacred... and that we cannot sell the air.

[pbc...@earthlink.net]

Yes. Back the core spirit and ethos of Seattle.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

[Briana Barrett]

3 lessons I learned in the Multiple Victories workshop (excellent
workshop) taught by the Pomegranate Center:


(pointing to a slide depicting all of the the areas that describe
healthy community life) "You are there to help a community develop
ideas into projects that accomplish nothing less than Multiple
Victories. Any idea or project that does not enrich and lift ALL of
these areas, is ultimately detrimental to the community."


"Never do for the community what the community can do for itself" -
your facilitation is there to draw out and reflect back the best in a
community, and guide the experience of realizing the project in this
holistic way.


The preparation that goes into a successful community meeting that
properly reflects the value we must acknowledge is in the room when
many people make time to get together, is like a well-rehearsed play,
AND a well-researched thesis: for each and every facilitator,
preparation time is 10 times as many hours as the meeting is long.

[Elizabeth Campbell]

Some of these wonderful lessons are legacies of Jim Diers.  They reminded me of 'neighbor power', his wonderful book on the successes of community organizations in the late '80's and early 90's.  Perhaps good reference material for facilitating and communicating to both our communities and the City Government. 

re: support from the City.  I think that some of our incredible ideas for priorities on the Idea Scale will receive a *lot* of support.  OSE is really heavy on ways to bring water and energy savings to individuals in our communities.  Totally agree that this support would be so helpful to us in the community. 

-e