Can a person just email the mayor, just like that? I've always wondered about this sorta thing.
So I'm biking around in downtown Durham, when all of a sudden I see, posted up on a building over some green space, a huge banner with some
rockin'historical Black notaries from the civil rights era and previously. Some really cool names up there, some of which I'd only know about because I took Dr. Iris Carlton
LaNey's rockin' class on the History of Social Work in the
UNC Master's in Social Work program.
Well, as an aspiring White Anti-Racist dude, I wanted to share my approval of these Black notaries in their rightful place. I'm
thinkin'... who should I tell?
So on a whim, I emailed Mayor Bill Bell and the Durham Council. I was always curious whether folks read emails sent to them. I mean, it's not like I can email George Bush and express my ongoing frustrations.
So I drafted a letter and shot it off!
I didn't really expect any responses... but I got three! Councilwoman Diane
Cattoti emailed me:
Thanks for writing. Good suggestions.
I'm copying staff that you should be in touch with who are working on a Parrish Street Living History Museum and other projects. Your ideas might mesh nicely.
Best regards,
Diane N. Catotti
...who
CCed Alan
DeLisle...
Thanks Diane. I will ask Peter Coyle to keep Mike informed about our Public Art project on Parrish St.
...who passed me on to Peter...
Hello Mr. Fliss
I would be happy to meet with you and bring you up to date on the projects with which I?m involved that touch on public art, including the Parrish Street Public Art project and a task force that is working on a proposal for the City and County governments for a long term public art funding, commissioning and approval process. The Duke University Center for Documentary Studies is working on a public art project in partnership with neighborhood leaders. Central Park has a public art project for temporary installations in the park. Both Downtown Durham Incorporated and the Appearance Commission are considering what roles they can play in public art encouragement.
So you raised you question at a good time. Please suggest times, next week or in August, which would be convenient for us to meet.
Peter Coyle
Cultural Master Plan Project Manager
Office of Economic and Workforce Development
City Hall
101 City Hall Plaza
Durham, NC 27701
Cc: Diane Catotti Alan DeLisle
...all within 24 hours of my sending the original message.
I guess my email came at a good time! I'm excited to see where this leads...and to get other heads I respect involved if they're interested.
This reminds me of a brief story. There was a point where I was trying to organize this class training for the
MPCs at
NCSSM (
acronym city: Multicultural Peer Counselors and North Carolina School of Science and Math), and I had this weird vibe about it. I'd emailed mentors and friends of mine I knew who had experience in class trainings:
Gita Gulati-Partee,
Cal Allen, Courtney Young (no longer with
RG),
Claudia Horwitz and others. But as things were going... again, I had this weird vibe.
I called Courtney Young, then working with
Resource Generation, and she coached me to some realizations. Everything seemed to be going too well, in a sense. I was pulling a lot of weight myself. Acting mostly individually, drawing on huge resources. She made the observation that I'd emailed and gotten responses from some heavy hitters in organizing, quickly. I'd talked about other kinds of "wealth" to use responsibly before: money, access, education, etc. - the book "
Classified" is a great way to bone up on that sorta stuff. But I hadn't recognized the power of my network and my ability to call on trainers, organizers, mentors, people with experience. (and incidentally, Claudia
facilitated a very moving training that students really appreciated.)
It's very possible anyone can email the mayor and councilors. But, in part, what allows me to feel comfortable doing something like that out of the blue is an entitled feeling of "citizenship" - that this is a thing I can do, that
anyone can do. And there's the danger - something I'm reminded of even now when I'm getting involved in this to-be-determined project:
Anyone
can't do what I just did in practice, even if it's true "in theory." Not everyone can feel comfortable to drop an organizing letter to the mayor and councilors, even if everyone would get a response. I could name next actions, acknowledge I had a network I'd love to get involved, say I had mentors. My guess is that my network and experience, once again, pulled some weight. Now, I'm excited to be involved, of course... but one more time I should be doing a "responsibility and community accountability" check. Acting alone is dangerous stuff...especially when it works.
Labels: Diane Cattoti, Durham, MPCs, NCSSM, Public Art, Resource Generation
