Is The Forte of our Institutions is Legaese not community

Milton Mathew the $172,000 a year Reston Executive Director wrote back me some years ago that the reason we cannot have bulletin boards that citizens can post their concerns on a public bulletin board is it will be used by pedophiles and the Reston Association would be legally liable.



Lila Gordon the outspoken Executive Director of the Reston Community Center who has contributed $200 to Cathy Hudgins similarly told me the reason why we cannot have a similar bulletin board at the community center (as well as presumably a suggestion box like the Vienna Community center has) is because their Fairfax County legal council has advised against it.



This makes me wonder is the main product of our Institutions legalese instead of community communication and links?


For about a two year period the Reston Association did provide a citizen accessible bulletin board where citizen could post their concerns. It is a requirement of the state of Virginia that Home Owners Associations be required to provide It was at the Reston Association but has suddenly with out announcement been taken down.



The Lake Ann Plaza features a bulletin board maintained for many years by the Reston Used book store. But that too has gone institutional and citizens can no longer use it to post concerns for which it looks it was originally designed as a central place for the community.



The all nationality grocery store at tall oaks shopping center used to feature two prominent bulletin boards that were widely used but that store went out of business. There are few bulletin boards the first place for our freedom of press in Reston.



I argue we need communication in Reston in order to be a community. We need to hire lawyers that will help us be a community instead of finding legal objections to communication. This should be our focus.



Our Neighborhood advisory committee which I am a member, is currently looking at plans to erect citizen accessible bulletin boards throughout Reston in compliance with the state directives. We found that we have no way to publicize Reston events like the Meeting at the Sheraton for Clusters for example. But when we express this to the board will this too be shot down again for some kind of legal reason?



For hundreds of years this country has allowed public bulletin boards. I see them in use when I travel to other towns through out the nation.


We don't need no suggestion at the Reston Community Center but in Vienna they do. This seems to be what our RCC are saying to us.Originally to have a "Community" Center was a grass roots effort. Somehow it got institutionalized and taken away from the very people that pay for it.



Citizens for example wanted and worked for a wood shop that could be used instead of having to keep large wood shop that could be shared instead of having buy and store workshop tools our small homes. But the RCC maybe doesn't like people trailing in and out with there wood projects and as a result limits it's use to just one day and one night when citizens can actually use it. And it closes it for "periodic maintenance" which no one can learn what is maintained.



I say we need to be a community and we need for our institutions to not oppose citizens wanting to express them selves.



In the current election Candidates are given 150 words by the Reston Association to state our goals. We are also given 20 seconds on their You Tube and Comcast broadcast. The Connection is giving us 100 words. The Reston Citizens Association is giving us 60 words times three. There is more that needs to be expressed as a candidate then just a few words though we are thankful for these and it is more then other citizens have.

Currently we have the Reston master plan which will effect all the citizens who live here. In order to be a community we need some way to communicate. It's the institutions that are telling us that everything is fine. We don't need any way to express ourselves we just can rely on them.



Currently only ten to twenty percent of citizens vote in Reston Association Elections. We did have people serving on the board of the Reston community Center that only had 200 voters electing them. Is it because there are so few places for citizens to learn about the issues and candidates that so few vote?

I'm a Cold Caller and I Live outside Most Comfort Zone

Part of the requirements to be a candidate for the Reston Association board seat is to assemble 25 signatures. To do so I have to ask people to sign. Most people if they are not distracted are agreeable to being solicited. But some few are highly annoyed and will look at you as if incredible that you are on the same planet.

I do much the same thing in my business of going to beauty salons soliciting stylists to have their scissors sharpened.

I had done the same soliciting when I petitioned Reston Citizens for to sign a petition permitting Reston to be incorporated to be put on the ballot. We'd hang out in front of grocery stores and ...ask citizens to sign. Most did. We got almost 5,000 signatures! A few people were mildly uncomfortable or said they didn't have time.

A lot of my fellow Reston Citizens Association members felt uncomfortable enough about asking for signatures, that they never showed up as volunteers to help in a effort which they were otherwise committed to. Some did, Jane Wong was one who single handedly got most of the 5,000 signatures.

I felt I had a right as a citizen to solicit other citizens for there own good.

It was Marion Stilson a transplanted Englishwoman who taught me to solicit for civic sauses when I first joined the Reston Citizens Association. She is now the President of RCA the but she is a leader in another way. She is a great example in living her life unconstrained by the wheelchair she is presently confined in.

Soliciting is though I think outside of most people's comfort zone. Especially Americans, maybe less so other nationalities. At first thinking about it I was a little uncomfortable but then once you do it it's fun, kind of like jumping into a cool mountain stream.

So I was not at all uncomfortable soliciting my fellow citizens for their signature on my petition to run for the Reston association Board Seat. I got some 48 names among them Joe Leighton (who is also running for the at large seat and I also signed his I don't feel I am reunnig "against" Joe but for Reston) Mark Steppell, Kathleen Driscol McKee, Richard Chew, Mary E. LaValley, Kati Ray, Jane Lee Wong, Colin Mills, Mike Corrigan, Richard Stilson, John Lovas and 40 others. A petition signer dose not obligate themselves to vote for the person running but like my town petition merely to allow it to be on the ballot. But it made me feel good that these fellow 'civic activists' felt comfortable signing my petition. And this time like always there were a few who were horrified

But if you have to cold call, to ask someone, to propose a deal to someone and you are a little bit nervous. Just go ahead and do it. You'll generally be glad you did. The next time will be easier and easier. I was sort of sad to turn in my petition to Cate Fulkerson, ending this part of the campaign.

They say the fastest growing Christian religion is Mormonism. And it's because they ask. Most don't ask so they don't grow. Not that I'm pro Mormon but maybe it demonstrates a point.

If you cold call you put yourself at risk to condemnation. That's why you have to believe in yourself. I urge you to believe in yourself and be all that you can be.

It's my hope that Reston will believe in itself and vote for me and vote to be connected to one another. As we connect and are concerned for one another's views it's my belief that we will enter a new ear and be the kind of society that Robert Simon envisioned. Clap your hands! that will be a great day, we're all going to win!