This report came out November 5th. I am not going to post the entire report, but you can click here to read it in full.
What jumped out at me, immediately, was the fact that overall, the sudden demographic change, i.e. the influx of Latinos, to specific neighborhoods, resulted in a sense of community loss. Residents who had lived in fairly homogeneous populations, were quite suddenly faced with dramatic changes to their perception of what was “comfortable” and secure in their own neighborhoods.
I am not suggesting there were not real issues of quality of life, but it is clear, the orchestrated deliberate attempt to equate all hispanics as “illegals” was meant to facilitate targeted removal of a specific population. Many hispanics left, not because they were lacking proper documentation, but because they were afraid of being harrassed.
FAIRFAX, Va.—A study by George Mason University researchers has found that a majority of residents in two Manassas neighborhoods express deep-seated anti-immigrant sentiments, though fewer than half say immigration has affected them personally. The survey, which included life history interviews, was conducted from Spring 2008 to Summer 2009 to attain an in-depth understanding of the forces inciting a local movement to adopt legislation to “crackdown” on illegal immigration in Prince William County.
Forty-six percent of those surveyed indicated that immigration had had either no effect on them personally or has had a positive effect. A total of 79 percent stated that they like their neighborhoods and 56.9 percent said that they planned to stay in their neighborhood in the next 5 years.
Yet, 53 percent of residents in the Weems and Sumner Lakes neighborhoods surveyed stated that the U.S. should take decisive action to deport illegal immigrants, and/or blamed them for depleting local resources such as health care and education. Some expressed strong anti-immigrant sentiments as indicated by the statements: “The place is being barraged with Latinos…Everywhere you go, there are swarms of them,” and, “Can I send them on a bus and load it up until they all speak English?” Others were more moderate in their sentiments, citing the issue of immigrants having entered the country illegally as a key concern.
“Our research suggests that the changes that have taken place in Manassas in the last 20 years have been unsettling for some residents,” says Debra Lattanzi Shutika, assistant professor of English at Mason. “Many of these residents seemed to be experiencing what I have identified as a type of ‘localized displacement’—they feel out of place in their home community. In some cases, residents told us that they found it difficult to adapt to the changes taking place around them, and that these changes that made their ‘home’ seem unfamiliar.”
“Homeowners naturally want their investments to appreciate,” says Cleaveland, a faculty member in Mason’s Department of Social Work. “What becomes problematic is turning this discussion into one about the presence of a particular group of people, and creating a social issue in which a certain segment of the population is targeted. We would have hoped for a debate and response that concerned trash pick-up, parking and overcrowding, instead of one in which a particular group is singled out as problematic.”
[EDITOR NOTE: Thread moved to current location because of continued interest. M-H 11/22/09]
Like the government naturalized thousands of Latinos who moved into PWC almost overnight. Right! To become a naturalized citizen you must demonstrate a small ability to communicate in English. No English is a fairly certain indicator that the person is an illegal immigrant. What are the figures for naturalized Latinos in the US? I bet it’s a tiny fraction of the number of illegals crossing our southern border, so chances are those you suspect of being illegal are. The reason why the discussion centers on one group of people is that they make up the vast majority of people illegally crossing our border. The words illegal and Latino are inseparable when discussing illegal immigration, so why the surprise? It’s anti Illegal-Immigrant, big difference!
I am having a problem figuring out what this report is really saying. My hat is off to you, Elena for figuring out this much. I am having a disconnect between who really was surveyed. Am I to understand the report correctly about them going from house to house in Summer Lake and Weems? I am curious what they are calling ‘Weems.’
As for Summer Lake, that is a rather insulated, upscale neighborhood and has very few immigrants living there–then or now. Neither Weems nor Summer Lake is in Prince William County. Both neighborhoods are City of Manassas. Neither neighborhood is ground zero. Not even close.
Does anyone know more than what this report is saying? Where does PWC come into play?
SA, can we agree that legal residents are ok? They don’t have to be citizens?
I know that you, SA, mean anti-illegal immigrant but can you speak for everyone? Many people speak out against all Latino immigrants. (and other nationalities also) FAIR makes little distinction also. Many local people make no distinction. One local leader was calling his neighbors illegals when they were here from Puerto Rico. They were American citizens for Pete’s sake.
If they are LEGAL they are welcome. As long as they come to this country to be part of it, and not just to increase their income, then they are welcome. It’s a package deal. If you’re going to live in America and enjoy all it has to offer, then at least make the attempt to do it legally. Not much to ask for all that is given in return. If it takes you ten years, then so be it. This land isn’t large enough to hold the world’s population nor support it, and that is why immigration is a controlled process. Makes sense to me.
I’m glad you said that, Alamo. They are welcome if the are legal? Great. That means after we legalize 11 million people, 60% of which are Latino, you’ll be as welcoming toward them as people who were born Americans? I commend you for being able to say that if that’s what you meant.
A big problem with directing so much hate at certain people due to legal status is that legal status can change over night. Why was all that time hating when you could well have no reason to hate in a day? This blog is bringing people together it looks like. If Alamo can change, then I have hope.
I would not dismiss the “quality of life” issue so quickly and transform it into a larger legal vs illegal debate. To use Moon-howler’s term, my town and my particular development have been and still are to some extent “ground zero.” I have been very active in Neighborhood Watch and in helping the management of our HOA try to maintain standards of more than 30 years duration.
My involvement with Neighborhood Watch began when the MS-13 gang actually moved into our development and tried to make it their turf, complete with a program of threatening “Anglos” who gave Hispanic residents any grief over any issue. After this was reported to me, I surveyed the situation, identified their residential abodes, and found to my great surprise that the gang members were actually patrolling our streets in their cars to protect their new “turf. It took some considerable effort by law enforcement and the HOA to move these gang members out, some of whom already had outstanding warrants against them. How did I first learn about all this? From a legal Hispanic immigrant, now a citizen, who was as upset about it as I was. A very funny thing about that. During my subsequent efforts to help the community, I found that among those most willing to help me were the legal immigrants or immigrant-citizens, Hispanic and otherwise, who felt their own quality of life and the value of their homes were being severely affected by the heedless actions of the illegals.
Having lived many years overseas in so-called Third World countries, co-existing with foreign cultures has been rather easy for me. Moreover, a part of my own nuclear family is Latino or part-Latino, either legal immigrant or first generation from legal immigrants. Yet, I have been admittedly baffled by some of the attitudes of the current illegal immigrants and their born-in-America offspring. The thing which strikes me most is their lack of heed for or even deliberate defiance of virtually every local law or HOA rule which exists. Even when detected and fined under the Virginia state law covering housing associations and condominiums, they seem to repeat the violations as if nothing had happened. For instance, I had one Hispanic citizen come to my door angry as Hell time after time because illegal immigrants insisted upon parking in his reserved parking spaces, leaving him stuck until he could call our tow truck under contract. His only other alternative was to go door to door up and down the street until he found the house in which these drivers were located. This poor chap had a good day only when Neighborhood Watch had actually seen where the illegal parkers had gone. Whenever I have directly confronted individuals in the act of this violation, I invariably get the phrase in the Spanish language which I have come most to hate: “Un momento, por favor.”
Someone here mentioned “trash.” Do I know the subject of trash? There are both county laws and HOA regulations prohibiting the unprotected storage of household waste in yards or at curbside overnight before the trash truck comes. The reasons are obvious: (1) rats and other rodents; and (2) wildlife coming into the neighborhood in a county which leads the Commonwealth in the number of validated rabies cases. We have tried everything to get recent immigrants to comply with this law: fines; multi-lingual advisories distributed house to house; meetings and social events targeted at Hispanic residents; even English classes held on our common premises. And yet the beat goes on. As the chief NW watch patrol, I would estimate that about 80-90% of confirmed violations come from the households of recent immigrants, often repeated violations. Furthermore, I am the one who has been chasing off many of the varmints and the rats when I find them digging into those illegal trash bags — often the flimsiest of trash bags. It has taken more than three years of steady and persistent effort to bring the community anywhere near compliance with county solid waste laws.
I could go on and on… unattended Hispanic children, sometimes age two or three, playing in busy streets (one of whose life was saved when I grabbed him away from a large SUV backing into a parking space); children without adequate supervision destroying both common and personal property ; people driving their vehicles up onto lawns and across sidewalks just because it was inconvenient to carry something a bit further; people parking vehicles on the common areas; the overcrowding of homes in violation of zoning laws which are, unfortunately, poorly enforced in our county; using residential units for unauthorized business purposes; littering of common areas and private lawns which has become endemic; and, quite frankly and candidly, an increase in street and personal property crime which was the primary reason for my own presence on the streets at night, trying to help the police officer who has been specifically assigned to this and adjacent neighborhoods. Laughingly, I had been enjoying retirement from a long career of tracking down terrorists and other nefarious chaps; and my retirement now consists often of trying to protect my neighbors, be they citizen or legal immigrant.
And I will tell you one thing which makes absolutely no sense to me. If you are an illegal immigrant, one would think that you would try to avoid anything which would draw undue attention to yourself, especially the attention of upset neighbors. So, you tell me. Why do these illegals continue to ignore every darned law and rule as though they are exempt, even though these actions are sure to draw the wrath of the rest of us and foment that which many decry: a hardening anti-illegal bias? This is a matter of pure self-preservation. I have seen it practiced in multi-ethnic cultures around the world. Can anyone explain to me why those from south of our border do not get this? They keep telling me that they come here in search of a better life in a better place. Well, does it not make sense to meld lawfully into the culture of that place you sought out because it was better? If you live in almost lawless Tijuana and want to have a better life in San Diego, why on earth would you bring the “bad” of Tijuana to San Diego?
I am not a person of cultural or ethnic bias. But, by golly, I get mad as Hell that I have had to spend so much time out on the street protecting and preserving what was once a peaceful and clean neighborhood. I get mad as Hell when women of all nationalities come up to me and express heartfelt thanks at seeing me out on the street at night so they do not have to feel fear when they scoot from their cars to their homes in the darkness. And some of these are Hispanic-American women! And I get mad as Hell when I have to call Police Dispatch because some guy across the way is playing salsa music at such a loud volume that it actually vibrates the window panes of my house? Sometimes I can feel the bias growing within me even though I detest even the thought.
Look, I’m just saying. Bias is never good. But you cannot deny that bias is sometimes genuinely created by those against whom the bias is directed. And I am speaking here of one neighborhood in one town, without going into all the other macro-issues involved in the immigration debate.
Yeah, there has to be a way to acknowledge that some of the behavior of these folks led to the anti-immigrant attitudes. All stereotypes probably have at least some truth to it. It just always happens that minorities get sh*t for sh*t that other minorities are guilty of. That don’t happen to white folks. That’s why the anti-immigrant thing is wrong. You can’t base laws on that. Sure as hell can’t base police work on blaming all for what some did.
“the orchestrated deliberate attempt to equate all hispanics as “illegals” ”
There was none. Elena, I knew that you posted this once I read this phrase, before I looked at your by-line. You persist in some fantasy that organized forces whipped up these negative feelings.
JT,
If our government makes the decision to legalize all those illegally here, then I’ll abide by that. It doesn’t mean I agree with it, but then the blame for the mess transfers to those making the decision. My statement about welcoming those that are legal was in the reference of going through the normal immigration process. The process would have slowed the rate at which those who may become bad neighbors actually become your neighbors. This would allow time for them to improve their life style, or at least be educated as to their misbehavior such that we don’t face what was faced in PWC. You can tolerate an occasional bad neighbor, but when you’re overrun by them, then you experience what Wolverine described above. No, I would not be as welcoming if we handed them legal status, whole different ball game! Sorry to get your hopes up.
The bias in the third paragraph of the sumary is evident. There seems to be no focus to this report.
As best I can figure from reading this report, we’ll all get along better if PWC can somehow keep Latinos from buying homes.
from reading the summary, I mean.
“Forty-six percent of those surveyed indicated that immigration had had either no effect on them personally or has had a positive effect. A total of 79 percent stated that they like their neighborhoods and 56.9 percent said that they planned to stay in their neighborhood in the next 5 years.
Yet, 53 percent of residents in the Weems and Sumner Lakes neighborhoods surveyed stated that the U.S. should take decisive action to deport illegal immigrants, and/or blamed them for depleting local resources such as health care and education. ”
Use of “yet” implies that the views should be contradictory. But they’re not. This summary appears to have been written by a nitwit. Apparently the effort is spearheaded by a Professor of English? perhaps she should stick to analyzing linguistic trends.
I just lost respect for George Mason University, that they would let this be called “research”. Sounds more like random interviews in search of a point.
“Trolling For Prejudice in the Northern Virginia Suburbs” might be a descriptive title.
Yeah, everything was making sense until we hit the third paragraph, where the train jumped the tracks and went straight into looneyville. At least you’re not alone, Elena, you’ve got JT to talk to.
Say what you will about ‘white folks’, but after watching 8 hours of color WWII film that is pretty much the only ‘folks’ I saw dying in battle to save this nation. ‘White folks’ don’t owe nothing to nobody, that debt was paid in full back then! So stop the racist reference if you’re guilty of it.
@Wolverine
How much of this has to do with socio-economics as opposed to legal status or ethnicity? I am reading these examples and thinking you can find similar situations in many urban neighborhoods and just as easily switch out the players with members of any nationality or citizen status.
As for gangs, yes, there are illegal immigrants who are part of gangs and gangs are not welcome. But there are just as many citizen gang members–in fact, there may be more, if I recall the stat correctly (have to look it up).
I commend you for working so hard in a positive way to improve your neighborhood. And I commend you trying to resist becoming prejudiced. Most people wouldn’t bother doing either. But I do believe when we look at these issues locally, we should not be looking at immigration status. Immigration is a separate mess all its own, and as such, needs to be worked on specifically at the federal level where the problem originates.
Holy cow, you all have been busy this morning. SA, I want to comment on WWII-HD first off. I am going to move those comments to the WWII-HD section. I also moved that thread up closer to current time for comment, since tonight is the last of the series. People might want to talk about it.
Please, you have got to be kidding Rick. BVBL was ONLY about showing “proof” that crime was only committed by people with hispanic surnames. I know you were there quite a bit, so please, don’t force me to dredge up the overwhelming articles that were posted where the title was “another illegal alien committs a crime” and there was ALWAYS 100% a commonanlity, the name was always hispanic. In fact, you can look at almost ANY article and if the name in mentioned was hispanice, there are ALWAYS comments accusing the person of being “illegal”. Let’s be honest here at least, at a bare minimum, so we can talk based on reality.
Wolverine,
You actually prove my point quite well, the police should be focused on gang activity, felony’s, and dangerous people. Who do you think the police NEED to help solve these crimes that tend to involve the poor immigrant community? They need the poor immigrant community! And that is exactly what ICE has been saying, there is a need to focus your resources on those areas where the community is most at risk. People working multiple jobs to earn a living are not the threat to you or me, it is people who DON’T work and use crime as a means to support themselves and gain self esteem.
Hey, I feel the same way about investing so much of my time protecting the environment from destructive land use practices, something we ALL pay for, but I can’t hold every politican or every developer responsible for the behavior of others.
My neighborhood changed in centreville, I have talked about it before. But it wasn’t Latino’s it was people from other parts of the world. I would never have thought to use a tactic like the immigration resolution to solve those problems, which, were very similar to the neighborhood complaints I heard in PWC. I think PAP makes a great point, change out the terms and you could put almost any ethnicity in there and it could apply, even white.
I like you Wolverine, you are honest and forthright, I am glad you found our blog. You make very valid points and there is definately credibility to your frustration, no doubt about it. The way you present your points allows me to “hear” you and for that I am greatly appreciative.
Slow,
Are you fighting with you wife ;), you are so cranky lately. Not to worry, even when you get irritated with me I will still like you.
Rick,
I will try to get the actual report and maybe we could invest some effort in analyizing it first hand.
The neighborhoods mentioned in the study were not impacted like many others were. I am not sure what the study is calling Weems. I do know where Summer Lake is, however, and to use that as an example …well…I just can’t say a thing other than the surveyers should have moved out to Point of Woods or Westgate.
PAP, I am not sure one can have this discussion without mentioning immigration status. Wolverine has managed to do something few have achieved, and that is to take rhetoric and the finger-pointing out of the discussion without pussy-footing around about what the real problem was/is.
When new people move in a neighborhood in a trickle, problems can be addressed by those already there. When neighborhoods have people move in huge numbers over a short period of time, it is harder to get the problem under control using normal means.
It’s easier to circle the wagons when one family in one home is the outlier. When you have 20 homes filled with people who are not all family members, it is real difficult to get control of the situation.
“I know you were there quite a bit, so please, don’t force me to dredge up the overwhelming articles that were posted where the title was “another illegal alien committs a crime” and there was ALWAYS 100% a commonanlity, the name was always hispanic.”
First off, I think we have to maintain some distance between bvbl.net and local opposition to illegal immigration. They don’t correlate exactly.
But as to your arguement, as expressed in this sentence, this is something people sometimes do that is very frustrating to many of us. To use this mantle of politcal correctness and this mentality of quotas to excuse bad (i.e. illegal) behavior.
The fact that most illegal immigrants in our area are Hispanic doesn’t make it bigoted to work against illegal immigration. Mass action that strongly correlates one ethnic group doesn’t make it de facto acceptable. Law enforcement, if it is intended to affect people equally, is not inherently a biased activity if one ethnic group is affected disproportionately.
I reject that arguement by those who want to legalize crack, and I reject it by those who cry rivers at the thought of prosecuting illegal immigrants.
I submit to you that most of the illegal aliens who coimmitted crimes in this area over the past few years have been overwhelmingly Hispanic.
@Rick
Not exactly but there is a huge overlap. GL can deny and define all he wants. The fact that the president and the blog owner are the same people negates his argument. When this issue was at high tide, the blog and the organization were pretty much the same.
By the way :
Most rapists are men
Most shoplifters are poor
Most Al Quaida members are Arabic
The blog now doesn’t represent me, I’ll tell you that. I don’t post there anymore.
My opinion on HSM is that they did a world of good. But what they are doing or planning now, I don’t know.
As to bvbl.net, I rebuke it.
Rick,
What exactly did HSM do that was a “world of good”, I am not being sacrcastic, I am honestly interested in your opinion.
Rick,
I am glad to here you rebuke BVBL, but BVBL cannot be seperated from HSM, Greg used them in conjunction to build his message and push the resolution. He used BVBL as his bully pulpit and it was integral in his effort to intimidate those who disagreed with him.
No, and I don’t FEEL particularly grouchy, either. But I do have strong feelings about what’s going on in what’s left of our nation.
Well, this morning Sumner Lake entrance has been tagged big time at the entrance off of Plantation Ln.
GMU should’ve definately headed to the county. Ground Zero should’ve been at the top of their list of neighborhoods that they interviewed.
@Moon-howler
Funny, though, I DO descend from a long line of men who were known for being “grouchy old men”. [shrugging my shoulders] Go Figure!
Rick,
Your points are well taken regarding generaliztions, I have made the same argument regarding serial killers…white,male, educated, mid 20’s to mid 30’s. However, the point I was making was that one cannot generalize ALL white men who fit this profile as serial killers. That is simply illogical and yet, we see today, if you are hispanic you are assumed to be here undocumented and thus people look at hispanics as if they are “criminials”. I really wish you would find the time to see the 9500 movie.
Let me add though, even IF you are here undocumented, working, and supporting your family, even then no one has the right to treat as if you are less than any other person. I harken back to my ancestry, coming here from Russia and Germany, I have no room to look down on any other immigrant. Does that mean I cannot recognize there are some issues with immigration or does that mean I believe in open borders, NO, I see that there are problems, but the tone the debate has often taken is simply unacceptable to me. Having said that, I am really feeling good about the level of discussion today, really good. We are talking with out “yelling” or calling names.
Second-Alamo, did it occur to you that many non-whites served our military in World War II, but the cameras focused on white troops?
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/ww2latinos/pub-books.html – Up to 750,000 Mexican American men served in World War II, earning more Medals of Honor and other decorations in proportion to their numbers than any other ethnic group.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/aframerwar/index.html – Over 2.5 million African-American men registered for the draft, and black women also volunteered in large numbers.
Not sure how many troops we had, but we had about 10 million drafted – http://www.sss.gov/induct.htm
Like Rick, I don’t post much at BVBL.net anymore, not because I disagree with the idealogy behind it’s content, it’s just not quite as exciting as this one. I am not and have never been a member of HSM. It’s important for people to understand (which in this case may not be possible) that for every member of HSM that is fighting to keep our community from becoming a slum, there are many more like me who agree, but don’t feel a need to be a direct part of the fight. Our vote is our weapon. Now folks ’round here would label us as a small fringe minority. Well, folks are free to think that! In fact, I hope they do think that! Might keep them from the polls!
“What exactly did HSM do that was a “world of good”, I am not being sacrcastic, I am honestly interested in your opinion.”
Forced our elected “leaders” deal with the isue of illegal immigration, which was turning whole neighborhoods into ghettos full of flophouses where no middle-class American would want to live. Basically, they Helped Save Manassas.
Slow,
I felt the same way during Bush’s last seven years, concerned about the direction of my country.
😉
As a non-member of HSM, I would say that they gave people from neighborhoods heavily impacted by immigration hope and a sense of togetherness. Looking at the film footage of meetings, you could see many older people who had lived in their communities for years.
I have never felt HSM was an all bad thing. However, the tone and the rhetoric out of some folks in the organization was not a good thing. The attacks on Chief Deane were wrong. You could see people hiding their faces when the camera came on them. That tells you something right there. There was too much questionable contact with supervisors.
Basically, an organization that should have worked on neighborhood problems turned into being all about campaigns and elections and ragging on every aspect of our county. In fact, I have always thought it was a vehicle for the 2007 elections and the people were just used.
From Today’s Washington Fish-Wrapper:
Obama arrived on the base 3:19 p.m. local time (1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), and received a rousing welcome from 1,500 troops in camouflage uniforms, many holding cameras or pointing cell phones to snap pictures.
“You guys make a pretty good photo op,” the president said.
UH-HUH, tell us all about it!
“I have made the same argument regarding serial killers…white,male, educated, mid 20’s to mid 30’s. ”
I thought about including that in my post, but I think that generalization/correlation is breaking down. Non-whites are making real inroads in serial kiling and in child molestation.
“I really wish you would find the time to see the 9500 movie.”
I intend to see it. Hopefully it’ll screen near here sometime soon not on a football Sunday.
But Rick, they didn’t. The economy did the dirty work. Those elected officials were all about the election. What did they do post 2007 elections? Nada.
If you decide to go to a screeing I would really like to meet you in person 🙂
@Rick Bentley
@Elena
Well, two of the last seven years (the two closest to now) saw the Democrats in charge with their liberal agenda. At the same time, Bush was abandoning the fundamental principles of his party. I can certainly understand your frustration.
But Rick,
You are assuming that all those people that left, leaving PWC, exponentially, in the worst forclosure disaster from any other county in the Old Dominion, were here undocumented. Was THAT good for our county?
GMU has been a huge disappointment during this entire debate. Far from being
a respected “honest broker” that could hopefully offer some reasoned and
unbiased research and suggestions for positive community action, they are
instead, only interested in one side – the plight of the Hispanic immigrant –
and totally ignore the challenges of neigborhoods and jurisdictions
confronted with a massive influx of often poor uneducated individuals
who differed in language and, in various degree, societal values and
expectations.
As M-H noted, this is a very diverse community and Hispanics have been
absorbed for years as have many other groups. The flood
of the past five years though, swamped the normal systems and led
to major challenges which are now aggravated by the poor economy
fiscal stress.
We need reasonable solutions based on balanced quality research,
not another “wag of the finger” from GMU.
“The attacks on Chief Deane were wrong.”
At one point Greg felt (rightly or wrongly – I don’t know) that he and HSM were constructively angeged with Chief Deane and that HSM should be careful to show him respect. Such as when Deane came before HSM and hemmed and hawed and acted pompous.
Yet, I had animus towards Deane based on how he acted and how diffident he was about issues that affected me every day. I was twitching while Deane spoke that night. My point – Greg L. didn’t inflame my opinion about deane. It was formed from an anger about the joke of local law enforcement in a climate where anonymous people are walking on my property and driving all over our roads, and my reaction to Deane himself. Greg’s blog posts about Deane have probably affected only a small percentage of residents’ opinions about deane or about the PWC police.
“You could see people hiding their faces when the camera came on them. That tells you something right there.”
Because there was no warning about cameras. BTW I think I’m slightly visible in some of that footage. Not that I wanted to be or ever consented.
“But Rick, they didn’t. The economy did the dirty work. Those elected officials were all about the election. What did they do post 2007 elections? Nada.”
I’m sure HSM and the resolution had some effect. They were the only people fighting the good fight while most middle-class Americans on my block were moving out as fast as their SUVs could take them.
“If you decide to go to a screeing I would really like to meet you in person ”
Okay but no cameras!
“I have always thought it was a vehicle for the 2007 elections and the people were just used.”
Miller and Fitzsimmons and whoever else might have used it that way, but I am very sure that the organization was formed by people out of sincere concern with what was happening to neighborhoods.