Summit focuses on how to organize

By Ed Runyan

The city doesn’t know yet how much of the federal bailout money it will get.

WARREN — The message that carried Barack Obama into the White House last week is the same message the citizens of Warren should take to heart for their own community: “We don’t like what’s going on.”

And to make significant changes in a person’s neighborhood or hometown, individuals need to learn how to effectively organize themselves, Damareo Cooper told a small group Thursday night at Harding High School.

“If the council person doesn’t get the job done, then you have to get enough people to replace the council person,” he said.

Cooper was one of several people working for the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative and two other groups who led the Warren Community Summit.

The others were the Alliance Community Outreach Program and Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People.

The summit focused on housing issues — Warren has about 2,900 vacant homes and is likely to receive about $1.8 million in Congressional housing aid — but the summit also focused on issues such as educational resources, foreclosure prevention and engaging youths.

Cooper, a 29-year-old whose breakout session focused on taking back neighborhoods, offered tips on how neighborhood organizers can build effective neighborhood watch groups.

Cooper said the city runs the risk of losing its many newly organized neighborhood groups or having them become insignificant if leaders don’t follow several suggestions:

USomeone in the organization should read “Robert’s Rules of Order” and use those rules to run the neighborhood block watch meetings so they run efficiently and members understand how a city council meeting works.

UKnock on doors and talk to people in the neighborhood one-on-one to find out what people want.

UNot every person will want to participate fully. Find about four or five core people who will accept responsibilities and have a large number of additional people who will show up when a particular need arises, such as attending a city council meeting.

UClose each meeting with an action plan and assign specific tasks.

UBe disciplined about meeting times. Hold the meeting at the same time each month.

USend out an agenda ahead of time so people will know what will be discussed at the meeting and will focus their discussion on particular issues and not get off track.

The MVOC, a nonprofit organization that began in March with funding from the Wean Foundation, hoped the meeting would begin to focus attention on the funding coming to the Valley from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, in which Congress approved $3.9 billion nationwide as part of the federal bailout to allow cities to acquire, rehabilitate and demolish certain kinds of housing.

Kirk Noden, executive director of MVOC, said local citizens and officials will pull together to claim a fair share of the $116 million awarded to Ohio to distribute to smaller cities like Warren.

Youngstown, as a larger city, was awarded $2.7 million. Warren’s share has not been determined, but Noden hopes the Mahoning Valley will get $10 million to $15 million.

Then he hopes his organization can help the Valley use the money strategically so that it isn’t “flushed down the toilet.”

One way to make sure the money is well-used is to make sure individuals at the neighborhood level are part of the process so the true problems of drug houses, dangerous and falling trees and the like will be addressed, he said.

runyan@vindy.com