2002-09-10 - 11:33 p.m.
After the Neighborhood Meeting...
I am so furious I could almost bite nails right now.
We are a small neighborhood, bordered on all sides by institutions, office buildings and developments. And some of us are fighting to keep our small houses and historic neighborhood intact, against the big developers. We lost the fight to keep the big pink institution from erecting an eight story building that will tower over us blocking the view. And tonight we met to hear yet another developer explain how they will be putting a huge apartment complex into the open space on another edge of our neighborhood.... without enough parking, adding another 200 or so cars to our tiny one way streets. Of course nobody wants it. The meeting bristled with hostility as the developers tried to snow us with studies and figures, and the residents demanded to know: where will they park their many cars? Where will they walk their many dogs? What will we do about all the traffic?
In this city the process to protest an action is through the neighborhood organization. And this is ours: the president, apparently for life, is an eighty-six year old German lady who has been an activist for years, but is now getting senile and behaving inappropriately. She gets re-elected every year because she has threatened to die if she is ousted and nobody wants that guilt, I guess. The board members, none of which were ever elected or voted on, are all old men who are outspoken in their bitterness and anger-- about everything.
The meetings were always so depressing that we used to wish we had never even heard of this neighborhood. All they ever did was complain about crime and rental properties. And any time new residents came to the meeting, perhaps anxious to get involved, they were soon driven away. For a while I stayed away, too. And yet we have been sucked back into the maelstrom with all this development going on, wanting to have some voice in trying to protect the neighborhood and not trusting the president to act in our interest any longer.
The neighborhood president and her little cadre of men (because she thinks only men have opinions that matter) have rolled over and endorsed the eight story building project, even though most of the neighborhood objected. They just decided they knew what was "best" for the neighborhood, and didn't give us any voice. Tonight we were at least in agreement about the new project. But that was where the agreement stopped.
One thing we thought would bring the neighborhood together was to put up banners to dress up the neighborhood and give us a sense of identity. This is done in other neighborhoods in the city, and we are one of the oldest unrecognized historical areas. Except that we do not really have a name. Our organization is named for the two areas it falls between. So, a committee was formed by some of the younger members who did a lot of leg work researching the history of the neighborhood. They found that the man who initially built most of the homes in the area, Mr. William Corbin, was the one for whom this area was originally named. One of the women on the committee is a graphic artist, and she donated her time to design a banner that said "Corbin Hill." Money had been donated to have the banners printed and mounted in the neighborhood and everyone who knew about it was excited that something positive was finally going to happen.
The two young women who had done all the work on this project stood up in front of the group and explained what they had done and asked for a vote on the two slightly different designs. But not so fast. Instead of appreciating their efforts, all the old men just launched an attack. The dour professor, who doesn't even live here, stood up and gave one of his pompous speeches about how every little area should be called something different, and we needed to retain our connection to the areas we are "between." And this old guy named Phil, who has to be the meanest man on earth, started yelling about how he's lived here for forty years and none of you newcomers know anything. Which is always the gist of anything he has to say. And then the others chimed in, followed by the president who had supported the banner committee until this attack, and now was publicly betraying them. I watched as their eager faces turned to masks of disappointment. The young woman who had designed the banners finally sat down in tears. I was so angry then I wanted to walk out, but I was so proud of Skootie because she made a statement in their defense, and a lot of people applauded her. I didn't say what I wanted to say, which probably would have only made things worse. When the president was berating people for not going to meetings, I just wanted to say: Why do you think anybody wants to get involved in this organization when all they get is this kind of hostility?
How could a bunch of people be so uncivilized as to attack their neighbors who were trying to do something good? And why do about three men and this old lady have all this power?
I think something is going to happen. Perhaps a bloodless coup. (Although if somebody pushed Phil in front of a bus, I would never tell.) There are several people who are unhappy with the organization and maybe it can be taken over, or an alternative started. I am such a defeatist, I always want to just quit, but Skootie says, if we quit then they have won. So we have to stay in and try to make it better. And I know she's right.
I think tomorrow I will at least e-mail the woman who designed the banner and tell her I appreciated her efforts. Let her know that everyone in the neighborhood isn't like those people. I know I'm not the only one biting nails tonight.
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