Maxwell Park Neighborhood News

by Sarah Hipolito

The Mayor Meets Maxwell Park

Have you experienced the "run around" the fragmented approach by city agencies that makes it difficult to get firm commitments to solve problems? We have. Maxwell Park Neighborhood Council (MPNC) created Neighborhood Action Teams (NATs) to learn effective ways to deal with bureaucracy while working on community problems.

The MPNC invited the Mayor to our regular meeting for his perspective on solving community problems. Due to scheduling conflicts, the meeting with the Mayor evolved into a Town Hall Meeting on December 17.

The Town Hall was open to the public. The responsibility, undertaken by MPNC, was to publicize, organize, house, and run the event. We wanted an occasion where all could be heard and issues would be addressed in a way that led to specific actions public agencies would commit to take.

There was an audience of neighbors and a panel of city staff including Jerry Brown, Mayor; Wayne Tucker, Chief of Police; Debra Edgerly, City Manager; Claudia Cappio, Community Economic Development Agency; Charon Harrison-Cosey, Oakland Housing Authority; Claudia Albano, Oakland Police Neighborhood Services Manager; Joe Wang, Traffic Engineering; Otis Jackson, Caltrans; Desley Brooks and Jean Quan, Councilmembers; and other city staff.

To familiarize city officials with our neighborhood, a guided tour took place before the meeting. The Mayor got first hand knowledge of the areas being addressed and our meeting started on time!

Are we there yet? No, but we made progress! The NATs will monitor action plans agreed to by the Mayor and panel. Using this model in future negotiations, we hope to enable agencies to respond to community concerns in a comprehensive and cooperative manner, not with the same old run around.

Visit www.maxwellparknc.com for the minutes and audio recording. Contact secretary\@maxwellparknc.com to join our Yahoo! group.