“VISION TO ACTION” WITH THE OCHS CENTER
05.10.2010 // by: Phillip
Last Wednesday at City Share, Lori Quillen and David Eichenthal from The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies presented the major findings of the Stand data and what those results say about the future of Chattanooga. Following Lori’s presentation of the facts and figures, David shared some important and inspiring thoughts on how vision becomes action through citizens taking responsibility for their communities and being involved in the civic process. Video coverage of last week’s City Share is posted below as well as David’s full talk (with particularly decisive bits in bold).
City Share: Vision To Action from CreateHere on Vimeo.
Vision to Action // David Eichenthal
On Sunday, I had an op-ed piece published in the Times Free Press outlining The Ochs Center’s research on the state of school readiness in Hamilton County. About two years ago, we found that one in four children born in Hamilton County were (for a variety of reasons) at risk of not being ready for school. Earlier this year, we put out the results of a survey led by Dr. Eileen Rehberg of parents registering their children for kindergarten. We found that about one in five children had not been in any sort of preschool program and that among at risk children, four in ten had not been in Head Start, childcare, or any sort of home visitation program. This was a terrific research project and I thought I had done a pretty good job outlining the problem in the op-ed.
I got an email at 1 a.m. on Monday morning titled “Re: Your Column in Sunday Paper.” It read: “Please tell us something we don’t already know – like the solution to the problem.” I thought that was a fair point.
The reality is that for many of the issues highlighted in our research and that stand out as issues of concern based on the responses to the Stand questionnaire, we actually know a fair amount about the solutions, as well as the magnitude of the problem.
I gave a talk late last year on four different numbers that I thought both defined the success and the challenges of Chattanooga. One of the numbers that I focused on was 37: 37% of moms giving birth in Hamilton County did not have first trimester prenatal care. Nationally, the number is 17%. The percentage of moms without first trimester prenatal care in Hamilton County is higher than in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. It is also higher than in Mississippi and Alabama. Simply put, all we have to do is address the issue as well as Mississippi and Alabama and we will be doing a better job.
There is also crime. I know that Stand has planned a separate session on crime, but I would like to say just a few words today. The ability of local governments around the nation to reduce crime rates is one of the truly great public policy success stories of the late 20th century. It is, in many ways, the local government equivalent of the polio vaccine – it saves lives. There were more than 2,200 homicides in New York City in 1990; last year, there were fewer than 500. This same story has been repeated in city after city after city – large and small – across the United States.
Don’t let anyone – anyone! – tell you that crime is just something you have to deal with in cities because we know that we have the right set of policies to combat crime.
That is, if we want to. Why don’t we have less crime in Chattanooga? Why don’t we have better prenatal care? Why don’t we have more children graduating from high school and going on to college and economic opportunity?
It would be easy to argue that it is because people don’t care enough. I believe this is wrong. You could also not argue that people don’t care enough if you spent time on the East Side two weekends ago as both Lori and I did. More than a thousand people came out in the rain to help needy people; to paint houses, clean lots; to work together to revive a community. They all cared a lot. They wanted to do the right thing. In many cases, they felt a certain moral – if not a religious – obligation to be there and to serve.
So why is it that we haven’t been able to tackle the crime problem in a way that other cities have? Why is it that we have a school system in which one in five students don’t graduate? Why is it that in Chattanooga we have more people living in poverty than ever before?
As I thought about all those people gathering behind Memorial Hospital on the East Side, I couldn’t help but wonder: how many of them were going to be among the 14,000 people who voted in Hamilton County’s election yesterday? How many of them had ever gone to a county commission or City Council or school board meeting to let their elected representatives know how important the future of their community is to them?
Last week as I was traveling, I took the shuttle up to the Nashville airport. I was the only passenger and I spent most of the ride talking to my driver who had served for years in the armed forces. He married a woman who had come to the United States illegally from Mexico, but who was now a legal resident. He spoke passionately about the need for a new immigration law. He also told me that he had never voted in an election.
We won’t reduce crime, improve education, or increase economic opportunity in our community until more people realize that democracy is a participatory sport and that you have to be in it to win it. To close the achievement gap, we have to eliminate our community’s advocacy gap. We have to make it normal for people to speak up for what they passionately believe in, backed with facts, and with respect for the other side. The best way to keep government upright is to lean on it from all sides.
When I was City Finance Officer, I was amazed that I was never lobbied on a budget issue by a member of the public. Never. A parade of community residents would attend City Council meetings to discuss land use issues in their neighborhood, but no one would ever speak out on the city budget.
One year, there was a lot of support within the administration to eliminate the city’s recycling program. I agreed that the program was not working well, but I also thought there were a series of ways to mend it rather than end it. I decided I would try to rally support for continuing recycling by voicing to the community that the elimination of their recycling program was under serious consideration. The result? Three emails. I got three lousy emails, one which was from a strong supporter of recycling who said that she hoped we would reconsider but knew we would do the right thing. By contrast, when there was an effort to end recycling in New York city in the early 1990s, protestors showed up at the home of the Deputy Mayor in charge of the effort with bags filled with garbage.
We need to arrive at a happy medium between in-your-face protests and the complacent attitude that someone will figure out the right thing to do. We need to understand that it is essential that people give voice to what they care about. Sometimes, it won’t be pretty because even when we agree on the problems and the ability to solve those problems may be clear, there is still room for a healthy and vigorous debate on the solutions. There are always more than two perspectives on a particular problem and there are rarely absolute rights or wrongs. We can disagree without being disagreeable.
Now is the time to start. Over the next few months, the elected leadership of our community will be making some very important decisions about our future. They need to hear you voice. Budgets aren’t about numbers—they are about priorities and choices. They are one of the most important ways for government to articulate what it cares most about.
This is a tough time to be making choices. Revenues are down and costs are up. A recession is, in many ways, the worst time to ask people to pay more in taxes and the worst time to impose budget cuts that eliminate jobs. This is why citizens need to be as clear as possible about what matters most to them and, in their eyes, what matters most to the community.
I am glad you all are here today. Honestly, I’d rather see you at a City Council meeting. Or at a school board meeting. Or at a county commission meeting. These are where the real decisions about the future of our city and our community will be made.
I don’t think it is possible to overstate the role that private philanthropy has played in the turnaround of Chattanooga and the relative prosperity of our region. Local foundations have provided innovation, vision, and leadership, and, yes, money. But please understand that when it comes to funding, the dollars spent by local foundations pale in comparison to the amount of money spent every year by local government. If you were to add up the budgets of county government, Chattanooga city government, and the school system, you would find that we are spending on the order of $600-$700 million a year. That is more than thirty times the amount of annual grants given by the city’s leading foundations.
To start closing the advocacy gap, I invite you to begin learning how that $700 million is currently spent and how it might be used to address the challenges facing our community.
Tommy Kranz, Daisy Madison, and Louis Wright are among the finest public servants I have ever worked with. Respectively, they are the CFOs of the school system, the city, and the county. You need to get to know who they are and they need to hear from you. They make tough decisions every day and they need you to understand those decisions even if – especially if! – you think they are the wrong ones. Go talk to them. They all work for you and part of what makes them fine public servants is that they know that.
I consider many members of the school board, county commission, and City Council to be my friends. I have worked closely with many of them. I guarantee that I don’t know a single one who wakes up in the morning thinking, “What can I do today to make Chattanooga a less livable place?” Most elected officials run for office because they want to (and think they can) improve life in our city. Go talk to them. Be clear about what you think is important. Demand results, because in the end, results are all that really matter. Nice people doing nice things does not reduce crime or improve graduation rates.
You must also demand results because it is the job of elected officials to deliver those results. Andrae McGary is my Councilman. I like Andrae (despite the fact that he is now a talk radio host). I want violent crime to decline in Chattanooga by 30% in the next three years. Other cities have done it; I know we can do it. I have nicely told Councilman McGary that if violence crime doesn’t decline 30% in the next three years, I will be finding another councilman who can deliver on those results.
If we can begin to have these conversations in Chattanooga, we can begin to take on the toughest challenges that our cities face in moving forward. We can have a city that celebrates its strengths and its truly historic turnaround while never becoming complacent in dealing with the challenges that remain.
We’ve got your back. The mission of the Ochs Center is “to conduct independent data analysis and policy research to improve the quality of life in the Chattanooga region.” We think we do a good job at that first part, but we know that the second part depends on people like you. We think we can help to identify the problems – and yes, the solutions – but without people willing to organize and take a stand, the best information and the best ideas will not amount to more than studies on the shelf gathering dust.
One of my favorite movies is The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe’s book on the beginnings of the U.S. space program. In a famous scene at the end of the movie, reporters ask Astronaut Gordon Cooper to identify who is the best pilot he ever saw. Cooper begins to think about all the test pilots and others who came before him, but then grins and answers, “You’re looking at him.”
Today, as we search for leadership to move Chattanooga forward to address the issues outlined in the responses to the Stand questionnaire, I ask you to be that leader, to be the “best advocate” for your community.
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