New Ideas- How to have them adopted

          When someone wants to bring up a new idea, no matter how worthy, that idea must usually be heard by others multiple times before the idea will begin to catch on.  In fact it takes people hearing about worthwhile concepts between 5 and 9 times before they begin to accept them, something this writer had to hear at least a half dozen times before resigning himself to a life of increased repetition and redundancy.  

          That means that in local government, a person, who feels strongly about something that might improve an aspect of the community, cannot expect a single visit to a meeting to be enough for that idea to gain traction. The proponent will likely have to write letters to the paper and visit with editors to acquaint them with the idea they want dealt with or incorporated into policy or ordinance. The proponent may also have to try to visit individually with decision makers to explain what he or she wants to see happen.  Persistence is necessary on any level to make changes.  Thus “the persistent and the redundant shall (often) inherit the earth” at least in local government issues.

         But ideas that don’t hold up under criteria of economic feasibility, impartiality, scope of responsibility of a given government body, resource conservation, or practicality likely will go no where no matter how many times it is heard.  Thus, ideas should be discussed with scrutinizing friends and family before being brought forth to decision making bodies.        

Other thoughts:

1. Many years ago there was a newscaster who ended his broadcasts with something like the following: If you don’t like the news go make some of your own.

2. And as President Kennedy said in effect–Ask not what your community can do for you, ask what you can do for your community.

3. A frog does not jump from a slowly heating pot until it is too late. So it is with US population growth——- we lost 3 billion birds from 1970 to 2020 while we added 130 million people. With such evidence of environmental degradation, why would anyone want to continue such growth?

An individual can make a difference in local government but not without effort. Again—

The persistent and the redundant shall “inherit the earth”.

Brent Thompson