Listen to the Broadcast on WJCT’s On Demand Page

Host Al Letson and WJCT's Karen Feagins in studio with Luther Delp.

We’ve had a few people ask us about the live broadcast of our Jacksonville episode on WJCT so we wanted to post it in case you missed some or all of it.

If you head over WJCT’s on demand page and click Listen you can hear the entire two hours with host Al Letson and WJCT’s Karen Feagins.

And if you want more information about any of the organizations featured in the show, check out the links below:

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• Save the St. Johns River Ferry
• Save Mayport Fishing Village
• Jumping Fish: Advocating for Our Waterways through Athletics
• Veterans Farm
• Brooks Adaptive Sports and Recreation

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At this point in the 21st century, it’s kind of impossible to talk about community-building without, at some point, talking about the internet. The way we meet people, establish connections, maintain our relationships and fight for what we believe in has been radically transformed by the web—and it’s still transforming. But often, when we’re talking about these changes, the focus is either on pure enthusiasm about the possibilities presented by the limitlessness of the web, or anxiety about online connections replacing physical ones. In this episode, we explore how the “virtual” has turned into the “real” in people’s lives.

For more information on “Virtual Reality” visit our episode page for photos, links and music information.

And keep up with the latest SOTRU releases and events on Soundcloud, iTunes, Facebook and Twitter.

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SOTRU’s New Audio Obituary Series Begins Today

Viola Morse, a lifelong Vermonter, died last year. After living in the same town for ninety-nine years, she must have left quite an imprint.  State of the Re:Union set up a voice-mail box so Viola’s friends, family, and admirers could share their memories in their own words.  This first piece in our new audio obituary series was produced by SOTRU intern extraordinaire Sara Brooke Curtis. 

Visit our Flickr page for more pictures of Viola, and hear more incredible stories about Vermonters in our new episode, “Vermont – The Small Town State”, releasing next month.

For more from State of the Re:Union, subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes and look for a new podcast every two weeks.

SOTRU’s new season of five episodes will be available for download beginning on June first. For the first half of season three, we traveled to Vermont, Maryland, Missouri and Washington State.

And in a series first, we are exploring a community based around a medium, instead of a location, for our much-anticipated Comics Book Episode.

Here is more information about our upcoming Episodes:

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
The Community of Comics – Releases June 5th

Despite the outdated stereotype of a solitary nerd holed up in his bedroom, burying himself in a world of fantasy, comic books serve as the connection point for a diverse community of people, who are drawn to them for all manner of reasons. And sometimes, comics become the vehicle for people to take action within the community itself or inspire individuals to make a difference in the wider world.

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Vermont – The Small Town State
Releases June 2nd

Quaint storefronts along Main streets, covered bridges over clear streams, cows from dairy farms dotting green valleys: across the state, these are the iconic images of Vermont. But beyond its pastoral beauty, this is a place that prides itself on its independent spirit. Not only in the ways you might have heard of—first state in the nation to legalize same sex civil unions, say—but in the way Vermonters take on everyday life, and the challenges of it.

Southeastern Washington – The Unlikely Perfect Place
Releases June 1st

The Tri-Cities of Washington are Richland, Pasco and Kennewick—three cities clustered near one another in the vast plains and deserts of Washington state, to the east of the Cascade Mountains. It’s a region that seems like it would have little to attract newcomers—it’s largely remote, prone to dust storms, not close to any major city. But, over the decades, this area has drawn people from the world over for reasons as various as nuclear bombs, wine-making, and harvesting sugar beets.

Ozarks: Full Circle
Releases June 4th

The Ozarks have long been an isolated place—steep mountains break up the landscape into hills and hollows, making each little town its own microcosm.  Outsiders might know little beyond the stereotypical hillbillies, generations of poverty, and an infamous meth problem, one of the worst in the country. But people in the Ozarks are pushing for ways to build community with few resources, to hold on to what is authentic about their identity while bucking stereotypes imposed on them by the outside world.

Baltimore, MD: Outsiders In
Releases June 3rd

Baltimore is a city of many neighborhoods, and of intense racial divides not easily overcome. But this it’s a place with more dimensions than the impression cast by the headlines and the TV series The Wire. Those images often overshadow the passion and dedication many Baltimoreans have for their city, and for taking on what’s wrong with it in ways small and large.

It has been almost a year since I started writing blog items for the State of the Re:Union website. I’ve both enjoyed it and found it useful in my work. A lot of what I do at the National Civic League is to disseminate stories of positive community change, stories that typically don’t get the same coverage in the news media that stories about celebrities behaving badly do, or politicians or the weather.

Sam Lee

But writing about these communities is only part of my job so I can’t always do justice to the many, many towns, cities, neighborhoods and regions we interact with through the All-America City Award and other programs. Blogging for SOTRU has forced me to focus on one such community every week and that has been good.

And I have to admit. I’m beginning to run out of stories. I’ve pretty much touched on all the finalists and winners from 2011 and some from earlier years. I was shaking my head over what to write about this week when I heard about Sam Lee and the story of Mililani Town, the only Hawaiian community to be named an All-America City.

Samuel Sang Hoy Lee returned to his native Hawaii in 1981 after a 26-year stint in the U.S Foreign Service having served in Sicily, Germany, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan. He was the chairman of the Mililani-Waipio-Melemanu Neighborhood Board when an environmental crisis erupted in his idyllic, tree-line, “perfectly planned” community.

Traces of ethylene dibromide (EDB) and dibromochloropropane (DBCP), pesticide runoff from the nearby pineapples fields, were found in the local water supply. One of the town’s five wells had to be closed because of contamination, the first of several to come.

“Most of the government agencies involved tried at first to downplay the health threat,” related Lee, in his 1985 presentation to the All-America City jury in Cincinnati. “Often supported by the scientific community and the university, their slogan to residents was, ‘Don’t panic!’” But one department head committed a pretty serious gaffe during a community meeting. “Personally, I’m not worried,” he said. “I drink Scotch.”

The National Civic League's All-America City Awards

The community mounted a letter-writing campaign and held a series of nearly two dozen local meetings, eventually wearing down the resistances of the powers that be. “We approached the problem within the perspective of our times,” explained Lee. “We helped government agencies realize that the standards for pesticide use accepted a generation ago were simply not accepted today.”

Community pressure led to the mayor of Honolulu declaring the contamination to be a threat to health and safety, which triggered the release of a $3 million emergency remediation fund, but community pressure also pushed the developer of the subdivision paying for a new carbon filtration system, which freed up the public funding for other water projects. Community pressure also led the EPA to issue an emergency ruling suspending the use of EDB in pineapple fields.

In the course of this struggle, Lee noted, the neighbors gradually began to employ a “secret weapon,” which he described to the AAC jury as “ohana spirit.” Ohana means family in Hawaii, but not the immediate family, the extended family, the clan, the community. The water crisis had “infused the town with the ohana spirit—a sense of the whole community pulling together.”

As for Lee, after leading the successful community uprising, he ran for a seat in the Hawaii House of Representatives, was elected and served five terms before retiring from public office in 1996. He passed away last week at the age of 81.

I never met him, but reading a typewritten transcript of his presentation to the 1985 All-America City the vivid language and good humor, made me smile. In writing about civic engagement, it’s hard to avoid using and overusing verbal abstractions like “deliberation,” “democratic governance,” “public engagement,” and the like. Ohana spirit, though, that’s pretty good.

Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

In an article for a special issue of the National Civic Review on the civics of sustainability a couple of years ago, Joel Mills, director of the Center for Communities by  Design, noted a correlation between civic capacity and environmental sustainability.

He later blogged on our All-America City Award site about Dubuque, Iowa, a city I’ve mentioned in a previous post for its success in engaging residents in large scale strategic planning sessions. As Joel noted, Dubuque’s efforts in the sustainability field were getting noticed. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named Dubuque as one of “three partner cities for its new Green Lab initiative to develop best practices in sustainability and preservation.”

Also, “the Obama administration included the city on its tour of America to highlight urban success stories. IBM recently announced that Dubuque will serve as its first Smart City partnership in the United States, with the hope that it can develop a model for other communities regarding energy efficiency.”

Lakewood, Colorado, an All-Amereica City in 2011 is another good example. Lakewood has done a lot to engage residents in budgeting and planning efforts. So with a hat tip to Joel, let me point out that Lakewood, an All-America City in 2011, is also green pioneer.

It all began a few years ago when the Learning Source, one of the country’s biggest adult literacy programs, realized its utility costs were higher than that of a 50-unit apartment building. Worried about the rising costs, the Lakewood-based nonprofit organization began looking for information about energy efficiency.

A conversation with members of the Alameda Community Gateway Association led to more conversations and, eventually, the founding of a “Greening Lakewood Business Partnership,” a public-private collaboration with a twofold mission: 1) to bring energy efficiency to the more than 1,500 existing office and commercial buildings in Lakewood; 2) to provide job training for local residents, including military veterans, particularly those returning from the current overseas conflicts.

First in line for an energy makeover was the Learning Source, which reduced its utility costs from $3,500 a month to $200. The renovations included exterior building insulation, a multistage boiler system, an efficient condensing unit and upgrades to the air handler. An energy management system, solar lighting and photovoltaic and thermal solar panels on two sections of new roof also were added.

City government takes the lead in facilitating relationships with the utility company, the banking community and the Governor’s Energy Office. The Better Business Bureau is providing marketing for the partnership. Other partners include Red Rocks Community College, the Alameda Gateway Community Association, Veterans Green Jobs, the Jefferson County Workforce Center and the Better Business Bureau, each agency has played a unique role in developing the program.

As Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy sees it, the partnership is both a win-win and a “great catalyst” for the community. “It creates jobs, particularly for veterans, provides the training and encourages sustainability,” he says. “Most importantly, it helps our small businesses. Money saved on energy bills can be reinvested in inventories and new hiring.”

Red Rocks Community Colleges developed an energy-auditing, retrofitting and financing curriculum for students. Under the direction of experienced proctors, the students gain field experience needed to pass industry auditing certification tests by conducting the free audits for businesses. The Veterans for Green Jobs mobilize the military veterans to enter the Red Rocks program. The Jefferson County Workforce Center coordinates funds providing paid internships for the students.

The National Civic League's All-America City Awards

Another local Greening effort is the Sustainable Neighborhoods Program for homeowners and apartment dwellers and owners. The program creates partnerships between the city and various neighborhoods to complete projects, host workshops or design other creative ways to engage in sustainable practices.

The city gives annual Sustainability Awards to inspire community members and hosts an annual Earth Week festival that includes an expo of displays, hands-on demonstrations, live music and information on sustainable practices, lectures, tours and cleanup and educational activities.

Two things Dubuque and Lakewood have in common is that both communities have long histories in engaging groups and individuals in creative partnerships. Both cities recognize that they can’t go it alone, and the ability to work across boundaries is essential in tackling difficult challenges such as environmental sustainability.

Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

Mike’s posts will appear every Thursday on the State of the Re:Union website.