Several neighbors at last week’s meeting raised a concern about the validity of those community survey results in light of the high percentage of respondents who said that they’ve lived here for such a brief time. I agreed that this was a problem, especially in regards to the survey’s report of an unusually high degree of optimism about our community’s future. Some of us who have been here a while have a more realistic assessment of Rogers Park, one that is based more on our experience than wishful thinking.

Be that as it may, divergent views of the future are at best secondary to working on reaching consensus on current problems and strategies to address them. That’s why, as a resident who is actively involved in work to improve our community, I am among many who are encouraged by the stated mission of Partners for Rogers Park. We want the group to succeed in nurturing development of a “just and healthy” community.

No one should be discouraged by the low resident participation numbers at PRP’s recent meetings. In my community development work experience I know that such a process as this one is not easy. It requires a long term view, the investment of lots of hard work, and yes many dozens of community meetings with poor and great attendance.

I would like to correct one reference in the article to PRP as an “all volunteer organization.” Technically that’s true, however it largely consists of the staff members of some of Rogers Park’s nonprofits who have come together to support community planning. That’s a great asset base however, as we saw last week, taking this to the next level of community buy-in must start with expanding the base by recruiting more community residents to be members. Of course, that also means including residents who have been here for more than a year.