7 Comments

  1. Posted September 8, 2015 at 8:43 pm | Permalink

    Candidates Gone Wild, yes please. Can I emcee? In between, I will read the poetry that I wrote in the mid-late 80s, mostly revolving around nuclear annihilation. People would show up to that, esp. if it involved alcohol.

    Or have them do a story slam. The Food Summit had a story slam last year (I took part so I’m kinda biased) and it was consistently rated as people’s favorite part.

    Oooh, or let the candidates or other officials help create public art! They can write poems for my “Words on Walls” ideas! Or they can draw themselves!

  2. Annonymous
    Posted September 9, 2015 at 6:58 am | Permalink

    I think it works to the advantage of politicians to have an uninformed electorate. That’s one of the reasons I have little hope for the future of America.

  3. Julie
    Posted September 9, 2015 at 8:14 am | Permalink

    Okay, that really IS awesome.

  4. Posted September 9, 2015 at 8:23 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the opportunity to talk about CivCity’s work in more detail, Mark. We really appreciate your support!

  5. Posted September 9, 2015 at 11:58 am | Permalink

    At the end of the Medicaid/Food Stamp application there is a mandatory question about whether people would like a voter registration form. Sometimes the answer is “no” because they are already registered to vote, but I am always unhappy when someone says no because they don’t think their vote counts.
    Which makes me think about two opportunities:
    1. Maybe some youtube videos from or about people who got elected by really narrow margins–Yousef Rabhi comes to mind, and I think Mayor Al Wheeler was in the same situation–but I think there have been a couple of more recent examples as well.

    2. Also maybe some focus on how easy it is to get and fill out a voter registration application…

  6. mariah
    Posted September 10, 2015 at 9:14 am | Permalink

    Even if I haven’t been able to participate in everything, I’m super thankful for all of Mary’s efforts. People often say they are interested in being involved in civic life but don’t like politics, so there’s obviously a difference in perception of the two, even though there’s a heck of a lot of overlap. Even just nudging people to be more informed and seek out information (and lowering the effort-bar, like with pre-election potlucks, something I’ve personally already found helpful – shout-out to Donald H!) is important work.

  7. Posted September 13, 2015 at 1:03 pm | Permalink

    Ruth, doing the kind of video interviews you mentioned are on our (very long) list of future projects! We had a fundraiser for CivCity this summer that Yousef attended, and I asked him to tell the story about that 2010 primary race for county commissioner, when he initially won by 1 vote – though a recount doubled his victory to 2 votes. It’s especially compelling because that happened relatively recently.

    Also related to your comment, I got my driver’s license renewal form in the mail last week. I’d forgotten that the Secretary of State’s office includes voter registration forms in those mailings. I’d like to see more of that – for example, what if the city’s water bills or tax bills included voter registration forms too? There are so many ways that the government, businesses, nonprofits, homeowners’ groups and others can use existing mechanisms to strengthen our civic culture. I hope CivCity can plant some seeds to make that happen.

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