Programs for young people were discussed along with community beautification. People mentioned transportation options and the importance of keeping drugs out of schools.
Those were among the priorities established Thursday night in the gym of the Rainier Beach Community Center at the fourth annual Rainier Beach Community Action Meeting, where community members came to break bread and discuss issues surrounding the community. The meeting focused on evaluating priorities established at the 2006 Community Action Meeting and setting new ones for 2007.
Ideas were plentiful: more intervention specialists in schools for kids at risk of becoming addicted to drugs; Attention to environmental issues; helping the academic programs at Rainier Beach High School measure up to its athletic programs; promoting multiple transportation resources for residents.
The Rainier Beach neighborhood was the focus of the evening, as residents talked enthusiastically - and sometimes despairingly - about planned changes.
"We try to be selfish about Rainier Beach because we see it as an anchor," said Gregory Davis, president of the Rainier Beach Community Empowerment Coalition (RBCEC), which organizes the meeting each year.
"We have the eyes of the city on us; we have the eyes of the county on us," he told the assembled crowd, before encouraging them to break off into smaller groups and brainstorm priorities based on categories which included economic development, public safety and transportation and education.
The meeting also served to show residents what they could accomplish by coming together, a concept dear to Davis and the coalition, whose mission is to build community capacity to address critical issues and enhance quality of life. Many issues, including how to make the community safer for kids at night, are ongoing and require more than one conversation.
"We're excited today because we're bringing people together," Davis said. "Doing that, it seems like resources are leveraged and the neighborhood builds esteem."
Davis said the meeting has some elements of a traditional town hall forum, but was quick to point out what he sees as a critical difference.
"A Town Hall meeting tends to generate a lot of conversation, a lot of ideas, and then people go home," he told the 60 or so residents who gathered in the gym at The New School to break bread and have a community-based conversation. "I want to call this a community action meeting."
While residents took time to reflect on the community's accomplishments during the past year, some also used the forum as a platform to air grievances. There's still a large feeling that the city looks down on Rainier Beach and treats it unfairly, said Stu Weiss, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1960. Weiss said he was dissatisfied with the Community Renewal Act, which allows the government to transfer "blighted" areas to private developers.
"They call it eminent domain, but to me it's not eminent domain," Weiss asserted. "It's thievery," he said.
One of the biggest challenges Rainier Beach residents face is gaining respect from the city, Weiss added. He asserted that the neighborhood has changed during the past several decades.
"There's a real influx of people who don't have the same values as the people of the '60s had in being good neighbors," he said.
Kyana Stephens, a juvenile public defender with The Defender Association, put it more bluntly.
"We forget that the people who live here are characterized as unsafe," she said. "Our young people need to be treated at a level of respect."
Tamsen Spengler, program director at the Atlantic Street Center, praised the increased number of youth programs but said she worries that residents are becoming apathetic about making changes to better the community.
"We're starting to lose the identity," Spengler said. "Every time we go out and talk, nothing gets done."
One of the priorities set for 2007, written on a large sheet of butcher paper in black marker, reflected Spengler's concerns.
"It takes a village to raise a child," the statement read. "We need to go back to the old time way, take children into our own homes, show them more love so they know the community cares."
Thursday's turnout was small compared to other years - about 60 residents came out, compared to an average turnout of 200 for previous Community Action Meetings. Davis chalked the difference up to a missed mailing that would have informed residents of the meeting and its purpose.
"The residents need to be aware that we can really make a positive change in our community," said RBCEC member Elaine Newton. "If we walk out of here having convinced people they can make a difference, then we have won."
Blythe Lawrence may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com.
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