messages

Dimond Message Board

D.I.A. Questionnaire1
Elaine Lyford-Nojima
Toni Locke
Janet Broughton

Elaine Lyford-Nojima

  1. I have the same goals and hopes as most people, I imagine: safe, clean neighborhood. But in the few meetings I attended of the DIA, I felt overwhelmed with the disorder and lack of focus of the group - I couldn't tell you what people were working on or one or two foci of the group.

  2. Meetings are important if they are focused, organized and accomplish something.

  3. Stay on Dick Spees' back to get him to pay attention to our needs.

  4. no

  5. no

    A comment: the few meetings I attended seemed to be somewhat dominated by older folks who were complaining and negative, complaining about gum on the sidewalks and a new restaurant that was having some trouble with parking and/or traffic. This member wanted to chase this restaurant out of the neighborhood! We need to welcome businesses and work with them, not get rid of them. The older folks seemed to be naysayers and closed minded and had an attitude that was not all that welcoming to new people like myself.

  6. One neighborhood group combined itself with the NCPC and became the Neighborhood Improvement Council, and that works well. But again, I don't know what the DIA is supposed to do -"improving the neighborhood" isn't enough of a goal. The meetings were disorganized, ran late, unfocused. No one has time to waste at meetings that are unproductive. That's why I stopped attending.  

Toni Locke
As a 15-year member of D.I.A. and the editor of the Metro I think I have two angles on the debate about the Future of the D.I.A. Here are my present thoughts.

  1. The D.I.A. has come to the end of a distinguished period of community service as presently organized. Let it graciously dissolve.

  2. Some ongoing projects that developed under the D.I.A. aegis appear to be in good health, serving a strong role in the district: The Dimond website, unique in the city thanks to Tim Chapman; the beautification committee led by Faith Harris and Linda Farabee; the newsletter created by Janet Broughton; the regular connection with city council and officials maintained by Mike Mannix, Jim Hill et al., Metro and DIA newsletter distribution thanks to Verne Vinella .

  3. Add to the above other community projects with proven track records and good leadership; parent organizations around Sequoia School, P.T.A., Dads, Healthy Start etc; the dedicated committee that worked with Mark at Parks & Rec to get the tots playground equipment and area in Dimond Park; the large and flourishing Sausal Creek Friends group; the senior program at St. Jarlath; cohesive block organization, for ex. Sheffield Ave.; a coffee house crowd around Caffe Diem. You add to the list.

  4. Perhaps the few who have been discussing Dimond organization could plan a way of sounding out the leaders of this whole range of activists on the viability and/or need for a new Dimond Network that would undertake a coordinating role that might be needed simply for one or two major projects in a given year that would command the time and interest of all the disparate groups in the Dimond. Thus a few really important big meetings might be generated, or a stage by stage campaign to achieve some overall Dimond improvement in cooperation with the city ...something along those lines. Such a new center of leadership might not need elections, by-laws etc, but function like a coordinating body, delegated by others. A Dimond Network could then produce the people-power to make things happen that each group separately would be unable to.

  5. The process alone of discussing what P.T.A. had in common with Friends of Sausal Creek, or how transportation improvement night aid senior programs etc. might create a new vision for the Dimond. I think the potential is enormous. New residents, younger people, and the wisdom of long experience together strike me as great ingredients for such a process.

  6. Happy New Year to all my friends in the Dimond from Toni Locke  

Janet Broughton
I am in full agreement with Toni Locke. For whatever reasons, the DIA structure hasn't been working very well. (Elaine Lyford-Nojima's message underlines this point.) Yet many good things are happening in Dimond. I think we should fold the DIA corporation and, quite informally, start a new group that would develop its own new ways of functioning. In the beginning perhaps it'd be nothing more than a loose affiliation among individuals and groups to exchange news and information. (The Metro and dimondnews.org would be key links.) How about "Dimond Neighborhood Alliance" (DNA)? The DIA could give its money to the new group to cover expenses like flowers, web-site name, flyers, etc.  

home new dia city ncpc messages neighborhoods top