Feature > Opinion > HOW TO BUILD A COMMUNITY: LESSON 2: THE TOWN HALL MEETING BY BRUCE BAHMANI
“Hey! It’s not as difficult as it looks!”
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So far so good. My head is still attached to my neck! I expected nothing short of a public hanging, after the last article on naked micro-emperors. Some even sent me emails congratulating me on my candor. Almost all of you however, chimed in and it was, as the famous poet Berra said, “…like déjà vu all over again.
Here’s a few of the responses;
'Sadly, what you say is true. I hope Iranians [will] become… a real community similar to the Irish, Italians and Chinese. There will always be politics but having work[ed] in the nonprofit world for the past 15 years, I have never experienced such cut-throat actions in the name of 'community'…”
'There are lots of these benevolent tyrants… the unity movement must be from the ground up.'
“…we have managed to root here on [an] individual basis. This phase was a success. And, now for next phase… we need to build our community stronger with sustainable structure. As it appears, this is our new frontier to master…”
'…the Iranian community doesn't really care about establishing a community outside of Iran. They want to be entertained and that is what these 'non-profits' do on Norooz. So, shame on the 'tyrants' but more shame on the Iranian community which acts like the herd and plays into their hand.'
Wow! So now what?
Hang On, Baba Jan! First some research. As hard as it to believe (these days), the US is still the bastion of democracy. And one thing we Iranians definitely have in common with our American brethren is defiance. So check this out, 300 years ago, the first defiant Americans came up with a concept called 'Town Meeting'. Not 'Town Hall Meeting', that is a Bill Clinton invention. The Town Meeting is in fact a legal form of small community governance, still in use in places like Massachusetts
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and Vermont. Typically used for enabling small communities to run themselves. Sound at all familiar?
How about a more formal definition?
'A town meeting is a meeting where an entire geographic area is invited to participate in a gathering, often for an administrative purpose. It may be to obtain community suggestions or feedback on public policies.' – source; look it up yourself!
Who would have thunk that the answer to our problem was right here all along!
It is always a good idea to define a problem before solving it. After a couple weeks of research, it seems ours is two-fold: 1) How do you call a community meeting, without being the suspicious one calling the meeting? 2) Then, if you were successful, how would you run the meeting? OK, there’s also a third fold, 3) How do you prevent everyone from tearing each other’s heads off? I say we go with a really inspiring and opening remarks, and then just hope people behave themselves. I'll nominate Abbas Milani for that job.
Being intelligent Iranians with absolutely no budget, we of course look for an expert who will give us free answers. If we could find such a person who would understand Town Meeting and our unique Iranian character, that would be a bonus. Believe it or not, I found 3! The most qualified Iranian-American for this that I know is Ahsha Safai. Ahsha has worked over the past 7 years for the City of San Francisco in multiple capacities all centering on community organizing and development. For the first 2 years of SF Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration, he held the position of Deputy Director for the Mayor's Office of Community Development. Before all of that he worked for Governor Dukakis in Massachusetts, as well as a stint in the last of the 2 Clinton White Houses. So let's just say that he has conducted a few community meetings.
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