We Need to Work on the Better

As many of you have already seen, there was an incident of vandalism on Interfaith Sanctuaries State Street Property.

Unfortunately, I have also found out that there are some other behaviors intentionally or unintentionally reflecting badly on our efforts to advocate for a safe reasonable solution to the Homeless Shelter issue in Boise.

In the last few days, someone who is a part of this group has twice gone to a private business located on Vista apparently because Mayor McClean and Reclaim Idaho were customers of theirs.

I know the business owner personally, and can absolutely assure you that they are not part of any of the decision making or advocacy organization, and are very empathetic with the neighborhoods concerns.

While I understand that people are passionate about issues and views, confrontations with people who have no power or hand in the decisions that will be made by the city council have the power to backfire.

Being accused of being NIMBYs and of unsympathetic to the homeless is a hard enough cross to overcome without getting a reputation for being confrontational or accosting people at their place of businesses. Especially when it’s women who have had to deal with threats of violence solely because of their job. Not politicians. Not public officials. Not even spokespeople.

I understand emotion. I have literally shouted at news articles or TV broadcasts that misstate valid positions or ignore reasonable concern. What I am asking you guys is to think carefully about how you act, how you behave. The things you type online.

This is public relations battle that will be inevitably be decided in a democratically elected city council.

As I have said before, the number one thing you can do is not only exercise your right to vote, but to encourage your neighbors to vote.

First you need to contact your District 3 (or other) candidates, and ask them where they stand on the issues.

Then, once you have made a reasonable decision, you not only need to vote, you need to encourage your neighbors to vote.

And I promise you, your power to encourage people to vote is reliant on your movements ability to appear knowledgeable and reasonable. To set the example for the type of behavior that you want for our City, and your neighborhood.