November Message

We have good reason to be proud of our efforts in the recent City elections. CONA met in January and set an agenda of issues designed to improve our neighborhoods. We lobbied city hall and identified the issue that we could pass quickly. The Green Cities program, which was a CONA idea, passed in the summer and will result in a considerable number of
changes in policies and practices over the rest of the decade. The timing for another energy crunch could not have been better.

We set community policing and a series of quality of life issues as our top priorities. We should feel good that at every speaking event during the campaign, citizens asked candidates for their stands on supporting community policing, filling the ranks of police officers and enforcing a variety of quality of life laws. Candidates consistently promised to push our agenda in the next four years.

The City Council debated our issues and the CONA newsletter reported a series of City Council votes so neighborhoods could know who was helping us once it got down to votes. We intend to continue to push our agenda in 2006. We will go through a similar brainstorming session in January and vote on priorities in February. I believe we have laid a foundation during this election session that will mandate that City Hall continues to place a high priority on the issues that matter to neighborhoods. Congratulations for all the hard work. The candidates heard you load and clear.

Our new City Council Member, Jeff Danner, will join us at the November meeting to thank us for his victory. Jeff has a long history as a neighborhood activist and needs no education in the issues that matter to us!