One of the first things I did after we formed the Georgetown Merchants Association was to invite Mayor Greg Nickels to a future meeting. When I submitted the information to his scheduler, I wondered how many times I would have to invite him before he accepted. I learned the answer the next day: one.
Within 24 hours of e-mailing my request, a staffer called and said the mayor would love to attend. He was already booked for June but he could come to our July meeting.
July it was.
Knowing this was a huge opportunity for us, and for Georgetown as a whole, we needed a plan. We decided to hold a pre-mayor meeting to discuss logistics; after all it wasn't every day the mayor comes to visit. Maybe a dozen of us met to talk about what we wanted to accomplish and how we were going to do that.
We decided to take the mayor on a journey of sorts. We were going to show him how Georgetown has changed through the years: it would be a mixture of past, present and, of course, our future. Designated speakers would talk about their businesses and why they chose this neighborhood. Basically, we wanted to add a human element to Georgetown. This is a neighborhood that so often is called "industrial" but there is so much more to it, and we were going to do our best to illustrate that.
With all the issues that we are facing in Georgetown and the South End, some might wonder why we didn't want to talk about red light districts or the proposed dump. We purposefully opted not to talk about policy during this meeting. The reasoning behind that choice was discussions about policy can get rather heated. We didn't want that. We didn't want Mayor Nickels to feel defensive. We wanted to tell our story and be heard. And most importantly, we wanted the mayor to leave our meeting feeling good about us and what is happening in Georgetown.
The days leading up to our meeting were a bit crazy. The buzz was out, people heard the mayor was visiting and suddenly everyone wanted to be a merchant. We kept reiterating that there was not going to be an open microphone and we weren't going to talk about policy nor were we going to vent. We had a strategy and were sticking to it, crossing our fingers that it would work!
Our meeting was July 11, and we would know in a matter of hours if all the planning worked. We opened the doors at 6 p.m. and people filed in. More than 60 people were in attendance, not bad for an association that formed only a few months ago.
We started the evening with a great Power Point presentation that perfectly set the tone for the evening: four speakers followed. Each vignette was about an individual business and how they started, but each story captured the feeling of community that exists here: it is a neighborhood in the truest sense of the word.
Nickels then took the stage and in his opening remarks he acknowledged that he wasn't as familiar with Georgetown as he was with other neighborhoods. That was a huge statement.
The mayor continued and spoke for about 10 minutes and answered some questions from the audience. He then did something that surprised us all. He opened up the floor . Nickels turned the tables and asked us what we wanted. He asked if we could take a moment and give him our top four wishes, what would they be?
Arms shot up and hands waved in the air. All structure and pre-planning was now out the window; we were now in free-for-all mode.
The overwhelming wishes were parking and traffic calming. He asked questions about Airport Way South and was surprised to hear that it was recently made into an arterial. He heard stories about accidents and how cars just speed through. We shared our vision of slowing cars down, making it more business and pedestrian friendly and how we need parking. I think he heard us.
Nickels started the meeting by saying he didn't know a lot about Georgetown, and he ended it by wanting to learn more. That is sign that our meeting was a success, though my fingers are still crossed!
Georgetown resident and businesswoman Kathy Nyland may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com. Give her a holler.[[In-content Ad]]
