Guilty as charged! But I can’t imagine going through life any other way!
So when I was asked to deepen my involvement in The Lakewood Observer Project, I was honored to be asked and eager to oblige.
How did I get to this point? Let’s take a quick trip back in time to May 1985.
I was 27 years old, newly married, deeply committed to the notion of “being of service,” and a Coast Guard Public Affairs Specialist Third Class stationed at USCG Headquarters in Washington, DC.
Then it happened. I received orders to my next duty station … Ninth Coast Guard District Office/Cleveland.
“Cleveland,” I remember thinking to myself, “This ought to be interesting!” I knew a little something about the region (like the weather there would be similar to what I experienced growing up in Western Massachusetts)… but, honestly, all I could envision was polka bands and pierogis and steel factories and Browns football in that storied old lakefront stadium.
Anyway, a few weeks later, my wife Jeanne (also a Coastie) and I were on the last day of our ten-day house-hunting trip (afforded military members who make a move from one duty station to another and who will not be living in barracks or base housing at the new assignment) and after looking all over greater Cleveland for a place to live—including Willoughby, Parma, Eastlake, North Ridgeville, etc.—fate found us driving into Lakewood and up Lincoln Avenue where we saw a For Rent sign on the tree lawn. John and Mary Juris (grandparents of Ward 3 Councilman Shawn Juris) invited us in and showed us around the upstairs apartment. Our first impressions of Lakewood were the warmth and welcoming nature Mary and John, a lovely retired couple, showed us. Yep; we had found our new home. Twenty-eight years later, Jeanne and I are still here.
I’ve always felt that its people are what make Lakewood such a great place. I should have realized that as soon as I met John and Mary Juris. Little did they know that they were front line ambassadors for Lakewood. In our own individual way, aren’t we all Lakewood Ambassadors?
And that brings me back to me being uber-geeked about my new role as Associate Editor for Community Engagement. You see, I simply love people and I deeply believe in democracy. In my mind, however, democracy is not so much a form of government as it is a form of Citizenship.
In a nutshell, my charge will be to find ways for The Lakewood Observer Project to help our community (individuals, government entities, non-profit organizations and businesses) look beneath and beyond the headlines and peer into a collective crystal ball as we all pursue “a better Lakewood.” If you know me at all, you know I am fond of saying, "If you want 'a better Lakewood’—however you define that—you are my ally."
Over the next year, I will be helping The Lakewood Observer Project with numerous community engagement issues including outreach, event planning, strategic initiatives and increased coverage of City Hall. By the way, have you noticed me using the term The Lakewood Observer Project a lot? That’s because The Lakewood Observer Project is more than our bi-weekly newspaper, The Lakewood Observer. The paper is just one of the Project’s tools. The Lakewood Observer Project also includes the online Observation Deck—where “good neighbors talk over the digital fence.”
The other exciting part of my role here is to help The Lakewood Observer Project reassess its Mission (to attract, articulate, and amplify civic intelligence and community good will in the city of Lakewood and beyond) and Goal (to help Lakewood residents and neighbors learn as much as possible about the city).
As this Project moves forward toward our tenth anniversary in 2014, we will explore other venues/tools/platforms. The opportunities and possibilities are endless...and with your input we intend to explore them all.
We will be bringing back our informal bi-monthly coffee meetings…but can we/should we kick it up a notch by sponsoring and presenting a more formal series of in-depth community forums?
Are more collaborative public-private partnerships in our future?
Could The Lakewood Observer Project produce cable access television programming? Or perhaps Lakewood-centric talk radio programming is a logical next step?
Can our efforts intertwine with the Community Vision Update currently being undertaken by the Department of Planning and Development?
What role can we all play in helping encourage start-up entrepreneurship in Lakewood?
How do we all coalesce? How do we connect the proverbial dots?
I could go on forever with possible scenarios and potential opportunities.
So … where I do I see The Lakewood Observer Project heading? (*shoulders shrugged, arms extended, and palms pointing upward*) That, fellow Lakewoodite, is largely up to you! I’m just here to help guide the process. I’m here to prod, to nudge, to moderate, to instigate… and dare I say, here to stir the pot?
I invite you to join us. However you want to help, there is a place for you. I urge you to contact me at petergrossetti@lakewoodobserver.com with any and all ideas, thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, compliments and/or criticisms. I promise your voice will be heard. (I just ask for your patience, because as with most of us who “work for” the Observer – this is a part-time, labor-of-love, volunteer gig.)
More to come. See you around town!
