On Saturday morning at 10:00am, we had a rare event in our neighborhood. We had the superintendent of police, the mayor, county officials, state officials and the alderman all together in Austin to spend a little less than two hours focused on Austin.
This was a potentially valuable opportunity, given our limited access to them, for them to devote their time to an effort that would have a lasting, positive impact on our community. This was a unique chance for a truly collaborative effort, bringing all levels of government officials together at one time.
They came together to walk around a few city blocks at 10:00am in the morning.
My question is “Was this the best use of their time together? “.
At 10:00 am in the morning on Saturday:
- The Green Team was conducting their community garden walk
- Parents were watching their children at little league baseball events
- The farmers markets were offering double benefit for Link dollars
- The criminal activity was at the low point for the day
If the consortium of elected officials had to pick a time of day to walk around the blocks, I would suggest that there was a better time.
At 10:00pm in the evening on Saturday:
- Law abiding citizens are at home, at a lawful event, or on transit to or from one of those options
- Criminal activity is approaching a high point for the day
We can think of at least one alternative activity that would have been an even better use of their time. It could potentially provide an impact that would last beyond a photograph in the paper or 30 seconds on the evening news.
That rare gathering in Austin, of all the government officials who have the responsibility to address the concerns of Austin, could have spent their two hours in a room, developing an action plan for neighborhood safety, with a timetable, assigning responsibility and listing measurable outcomes.
We would be able to measure their effort by evaluating whether we felt any safer at 10:00pm in Austin on any Saturday. We wouldn’t need to pull out the old pictures of them walking together around the city blocks to be assured that they worked on our behalf.
