Fighting city hall is always an uphill battle, but grassroots movements are still possible
SOMETHING HAPPENS — a company wants to extract aggregate next to an asparagus farm, a mother of two is killed on a section of highway known for deer crossing, a community realizes it needs a new fire hall — and there is reaction. "I should write a letter," someone might say. "I should call the newspaper," says someone else. "This needs to be addressed for the sake of our community," neighbours decide. "What can we do?"
Most of us barely muster up the conviction to follow through on writing a letter, let alone join a group. Interest diminishes and people move on to something else. But what happens when something is too important to let go? All it takes is one person who says "This is what I think we should do" and a grassroots movement — the banding together of ordinary citizens to deal with an issue affecting their community — is born.
When a wind metering tower suddenly appeared behind her house on Nova Scotia’s northwest coast, Lisa Betts began asking questions. "I had a couple of friends involved in putting that tower up and they knew it was the wind farm people seeing if it was a good spot. Everyone else thought it was a cellphone tower."
That prompted Betts to begin researching wind turbines. In the beginning, her interest was entirely personal because she didn’t want a wind turbine so close to her home but soon she realized it was going to have an impact on the entire Gulf Shore community where she lives. "The more I found out about them, the more I believed them not to be good for this community. My vision of this whole thing got broader and broader."
To get information out to her neighbours, Betts posted notices around the community announcing her new blog. "My point of view was to get the information out there, not to try and persuade anybody to change their mind. Another part of my policy was if I’m the lone voice in the wilderness, if no one else agrees with me, I’m not going to be the crazy person running around by myself. But I never had to worry about that. I had nothing but support."
As interest in — and opposition to — the proposed wind farm grew, Betts began to seriously consider an idea she’d had for years: that the Gulf Shore Road, which stretches between Pugwash and Wallace, needed a residents’ association. As with many grassroots movement, this one began at the dining room table. "I called some friends who were actively interested in this. Three of us sat down and kicked around some ideas." The first official meeting of the Gulf Shore Preservation Association drew almost 80 people; there are now 450 members.
"I was a little disappointed at how complacent people were at first," Betts says, but adds she was more surprised by the degree of enthusiasm once people got involved. "This place has great meaning for those people who have been coming here for 40, 50 years. There was no way they were going to take this lying down."
Change to a community is unavoidable but when that change threatens a special way of life, it brings out the passion in people. For a year, some residents of Mahone Bay have been battling a development they say will "change the character of this Nova Scotian treasure forever" as it’s put on the website for the Friends of the Mahone Woods and Field. When a developer announced plans to turn a soccer field and a 16-acre wood into a high-density housing project, Valerie Hearder felt that the whole underpinning of her life and commitment to the community would be eroded.
"When I realized this was happening, I thought, ‘It’s development, you have to live with it,’ " Hearder recalls. Then she said to herself, ‘No, I don’t. I’m actually going to lose something so profound here that I felt compelled — even if I was the only one to speak up — to go on record as saying I protest this.’ I also had somewhat of a romantic notion: Who speaks for the woods?" There came a moment for Hearder when she realized she had to put herself out there publicly and make her opinion heard. And like Betts, she didn’t want to be the only person out there fighting this.
"I sat down and wrote an open e-mail. I really agonized (over it) because I felt quite exposed — I was going to put my opinion down and send it out to as many people as I could. I very carefully said, ‘To my neighbours and fellow citizens, I’m very concerned . . . I feel I must reach out and find out if anyone thinks like me.’ I felt as if I had no option, that I had to do this."
On the other side of town, a woman who would be unaffected personally by the development found herself outraged by the process.
"What got my attention was the first public meeting," says Sue Bookchin. "The mayor said that whoever would like to speak could stand and then he called on people. At nine o’clock, the mayor ended the meeting while people were still standing — and I was one of those people."
Bookchin calls that the trigger for her involvement. "The idea that there are people at the front of room who have the power and decision making control and they’re not listening. I felt frustrated. I had things to say that others had not contributed. The idea that this would go through without any say by the public made my sense of justice rage."
That’s how a grassroots movement gets started: there is a trigger.
"Citizens want to be involved," explains Dr. Christine Saulnier, the director of the Nova Scotia office for the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "They don’t just want to vote, they want to do something else. They want to feel like they can take part in the way our society is being shaped."
For Bookchin, her involvement was an issue of democracy.
"It’s public land. As far as I’m concerned, the councillors do not own that land. The citizens of this town own that public land. Just because we elected these people doesn’t mean they can do what they want. I believe that once you are elected, you must continue to listen to your constituents and represent their desires, not your own."
That, according to Dr. Saulnier, is the basic impetus for any grassroots movement in our society: the limitations of representative democracy. "We have to think about the limitations of our current system of democracy. You’re looking for ways outside the system to influence the system and one way to do that is to come together with others who have similar concerns in a specific area. As an individual, you can call your MLA, your MP, and make those concerns heard but numbers — we’re talking about having a critical mass of people coming to consensus, ideally, on an issue and making those voices heard or making changes themselves."
Hearder and Bookchin worked with others to create Friends of Mahone Woods and Field, which is not a formal association but a website that, like Betts’ blog, is meant to provide information.
"This community is a pretty quiet, community-minded, lovely tourist spot and I think we were all asleep. We got complacent," says Bookchin. "This public meeting woke a lot of people up."
Grassroots movements can also focus on creating something. Elaine Cook is the chairperson of the Friends of the Pugwash Library (FOPL), a group formed officially over a year ago to raise funds to build a new library to serve the eastern part of Cumberland County.
"I’ve got a desire for a new library here because I’m a library user," Cook explains of her decision to get involved. "I noticed we needed a new library when I went into the children’s section and saw books piled in boxes because there is no shelf space."
Since it draws on the ordinary person, passion for a cause often transcends skill. Cook admits she is hampered by her lack of fundraising experience.
"I’m just playing it by ear," she says. "I read, I network, I pick people’s brains."
One of those brains belongs to editor and children’s author Norene Smiley, a new resident to Pugwash and the co-owner of a local café. She chose to volunteer with the FOPL because she too sees the "dire need" for a new facility.
"I think (the FOPL) is a good example of what can be done with a bit of effort and will," says Smiley. "They don’t have the decision-making power to make this happen alone but they do represent concerned citizens. They are a good example of how a small group can make a difference."
Or is that just the sustaining myth of grassroots movements? When ordinary citizens get together to battle government and corporations, to try to make their voices heard above the din of development and expansion, does it really make a difference?
Despite the obvious need for a new library, Cook finds the greatest frustration with the various levels of administration involved. Cook says "getting the interested parties together to form a plan to get funding" is the big roadblock the FOPL faces.
According to Lisa Betts, the wind farm plan on the Gulf Shore seems to have fizzled, the companies searching for more welcoming, or at least less obstructive, communities. "We’re not going to have the satisfaction of an ‘Aha! Gotcha!’ moment," Betts says with a hint of regret in her voice.
In Mahone Bay, debate over the high-density housing project remains active. "We’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop," Valerie Hearder admits.
"Council has asked the developer to go back and draw up another proposal for the woods and fields."
When asked if there has been a backlash against those opposing the development, Hearder replies with an emphatic Yes.
"Suddenly you have a neighbour upset with you because they don’t agree with what you’re doing," she says. "No one sets out to divide a community but that’s the way it unfolded."
Sue Bookchin adds, "I’m not against change and that’s how it’s been interpreted. But that’s not what it is for me. Change just for change’s sake — without thinking about what you’re sacrificing — is foolish."
Bookchin’s motivation for being involved illustrates the importance of grassroots movements: "I feel like I need to contribute to being part of how change happens."
Editor's Note: One of a series of stories marking the 250th anniversary of the province’s legislative assembly. Freelance writer Sara Jewell lives in Port Howe.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/1074928.html
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