A piece in the Bremerton Sun’s Bainbridge Islander publication (dated October 30 – November 5) described a recent community meeting to help the youth on the island. The article (I couldn’t find it on thesunlink.com site) ended with the following paragraph:
Mayor Darlene Kordonowy said she hopes the group’s questions and comments can be typed up and “passed around in coffee shops and talked about.”
I may not be a typical islander, but I can count the times I have been to coffee shops on one hand. I do hope that these questions and comments are discussed in the community. But I wonder whether relying on paper copies and coffee shop patrons is the best way to promote dialogue.
Is this the civic space we have as an island – coffee shops?! How can we find a commons where we can talk together? On an island of 20,000, I don’t think that coffee and copies are sufficient for creating effective discussions that include many community members.
This seems like the perfect place for a blog. Or a wiki. Or even a moderated web site. We need a shared space so that all of us can participate and help our community change. Coffee shops can only hold a certain number of customers, and paper copies can be shared so far. But the Internet has fewer limits. More of us can fit on-line. We can type our questions and comments, and respond to others. We can read and write. We can sit at a computer terminal with a cup of coffee, each one of us, and talk…
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