I’m writing to you because some of you have contacted me for support in healing a city that is going through turmoil. Attempts have been made before, and they failed because of the shortcomings of the participants. If you want to succeed, you have to start with good people – individuals who are not only of good character, but who care, and who are experienced enough to make sound decisions. And you have to build a community that is independent of the city’s government. I’d like to share with you what I tried to do 12 years ago and why I failed.
My background is in journalism and public relations/public information. I also have planning experience –having developed information plans for public events while in the Air Force, and later creating a small trade newspaper that met six deadlines (news, ad sales, paste-up, printer, mailing, billing) every month for ten years. I have been familiar with Pacific since the early 1970s, when I was a reporter on the Auburn Globe-News, which had an enormous “news hole.” I had to write a lot of material – 30,000 words a month. Pacific was part of my beat and I covered it like a blanket.
At that time Pacific truly was a community. There were 2,500 people in town. The freeway was just being completed. The sewer system and sidewalks were new. The park was relatively new. The town was integrated. Kids knew each other. There was a volunteer fire department. Its members had placed “tot finders” on the windows of children’s bedrooms in case of fire. When the peat caught fire under ground, the whole community got together and paid attention. There was a great deal of internal back-and-forth communication. But there was also turmoil. The police department was riding roughshod over the people, because city officials failed to acknowledge the excesses. Solving that issue was a wrenching experience for the community.
Over time the fire department was disbanded and other internal communications systems deteriorated. Pacific went from a small town to a small city in which people didn’t really know each other as well.
About the year 2000 I formed a small organization called “Pacific Candlelighters.” Our intent was to create projects in the city that would involve others. Candlelighters was a “steering committee” which would acquire help as needed, and then shrink again, bringing people together in projects that benefited the city and built community. The intent was to identify people who would make a positive contribution and then give them the opportunity to take part and shine. It was a natural “vetting” process that was intended to let the cream rise to the top. Candlelighters faltered when a civil war emerged in city government. It began with a controversy over the possibility an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center would be situated in Pacific. One of the most active opponents of the center was an individual who, by her own admission, had a serious mental illness and who was given a leadership role. This person was described in a court proceeding as an “urban terrorist.” The individual was very high energy and tenacious at hounding her neighbors as well as public officials, frequently with the encouragement of people who were involved politically in the town. A venal current was flowing through the city, it was fed by people who knew better, and it poisoned much of what it touched.
In this environment, Candlelighters faltered. When I ran for public office and was elected, I abandoned my efforts for Candlelighters because it was never intended to be part of the city government, and so there would have been a conflict of interest. Two years later, when Richard Hildreth became mayor, he was quick to announce the death of Candlelighters and was involved in the launching of Pacific Partnerships, which, I believe, he used as a means of bolstering his political power. My understanding is that he attempted to dominate the organization.
Two of the individuals who were involved with me in Candlelighters are still part of the community: Pastor Mark Gause of New Hope Lutheran Church, and Glenda White, the city’s postmistress.
New Hope is a “mission church” that helps a segment of the community that has great needs. It has been a gathering place for holiday presents for children of poor families; a food bank for the poor; a school for pre-schoolers; a location for blood drives; a place where scouts meet; a farm for pea-patchers; a place where Latinos could gather to respond to racial profiling. I couldn’t ask for a better friend than Mark, and to this day I don’t understand why a former city clerk, while she was taking notes at council meeting, was keeping a second set of notes snidely mocking the public, including this good man. It was a rotten way to treat someone in the helping profession.
It was at the Pacific Post Office where Candlelighter’s most permanent project still stands – the kiosk where individuals can post notices. It’s the community bulletin board, and it’s still in use after 10 years. It bears a plaque honoring Glen and Beverly Dragseth, two of the really nice people in the community. And the post office is operated by one of the community’s best people – Glenda White, who was cheated by a city that double billed her for years for sewer service, and forced her to give up her claim for recompense, and yet she does not remain bitter. She is a builder and a mainstay in our community. She was the force behind the holiday lighting program in Pacific.
When I was elected to my second term, my hope was to have dinner once a month with a family I had never met, and to report back to the city council who the people were, what they did for a living, how they interacted with the community, who their neighbors were, and what talents they and their neighbors might bring to bear in community building. Over the period of a year, there would be a growing cadre of talented people who had “the right stuff” to build a strong community, upon which a sound government could stand. I still believe this is the way to go.
My advice to you is to identify good people who have the stamina, interest, character and courage to do the right thing and to expect the right thing of others. They should be people who are interested first in community and secondly in themselves. And they should have the fortitude to say what they will not stand for; there has been too much tolerance of misbehavior in Pacific for too long, as well as too much reluctance to stand up for the individuals who are making the greatest contributions. Meet with them regularly, break bread with them, share stories about your families, and share your aspirations.
I would encourage you to find the right people, vet them, and then publicize them to the community. Not for the purpose of electing them. That’s a very transitory effort. Your purpose should be to build community, so that we know one another. It’s long been my belief that the values of the community were superior to the values of the city’s officials, and this has been proven time and again in elections. A good community, and not city hall, is what is going to create the Pacific you believe in. (That Pacific doesn't exist. You have to create it.)
From my own standpoint, I don’t care whether the city government survives. If it can’t operate properly, it shouldn’t. Thomas Jefferson said that a long time ago. Cy Sun was correct – the city was corrupt. It tolerated and even fostered misbehavior. But the people are another matter. It is the people, not the government, who make community. As Carl Sandberg said,
The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The people, yes!
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