Nov. 17, 2024
Journalist Ken Koontz says that, about eight years ago, he saw a need for some way that citizens could hold their elected officials publicly accountable for the promises they make. He wrote a draft of how a “We The People Alliance” could issue letter grades, “A” through “F,” as a reflection of individual officials’ stewardship.
That draft was the idea behind today’s Forum, but participants at the Belmont Center and online took the conversation a different direction. Most of the conversation dealt not with a new grading Alliance but with how to organize voting precincts – and how many Black and brown precincts are unorganized and have lower voter turnout on Election Day, likely in part as a result of that lack of organization.
Koontz brought to the meeting a story about issuing report cards. Participants, he said, had taught him that no Alliance would be successful until precincts were organized.
Online “listeners” (the city’s Internet troubles blanked the video feed most of the time) added a number of comments. Several commented on the video outage, which has been an ongoing problem in a number of city buildings since August. Among the other comments:
guest_73682 : I am the chair of precinct 204 in the university area. Precinct organizing is a challenge. I know because I have been involved in trying to organize other precincts. What is being done is NOT working. There needs to be a gathering of a few precinct chairs to discuss alternative ways to organize precincts — in particular predominantly African American precincts. Also, regarding elected officials, during election periods elected officials who are not on the ballot should also dedicate time at the polls to support candidates, in my opinion. Why wouldn’t they?
guest_73682 : I am not trying to take up all the message space LOL but what about political party leadership? We need to hold them accountable as well. Toni Mingo again
guest_73682 : You must have three people for a precinct meeting quorum.
guest_96426 : Mecklenburg County has 195 precincts. As of September 2024, there were 55 precincts there were not organized. Eighty percent (80%) of the unorganized precincts are designated African American percents (30% or more).
The African American Caucus – Mecklenburg County Democratic Party has the lead role in assisting in organizing these precincts. In addition, it is a priority of the NC Democratic Party 12th Congressional District Chair, William Mitchell (wmitch2630@gmail.com) to organized those Congressional District precincts.
If you are interested in organizing precincts in Mecklenburg County, please contact SY Mason-Watson, 1st Vice Chair of the African American Caucus-Mecklenburg County (symw10@gmail.com; 704-206-0353). Tanya Lewis, Chair, Pct 13; 1st Vice Chair, 12th Congressional District (chair@meckdempct13.org)
guest_33155 : Hi I’m Alexis King, Community and Advocacy Organizer from NCAE. I have had to watch virtually the last few weeks, unfortunately I was unable to come in today because of a car accident. I just wanted to say thank you all for hosting this. I will say as a young person a lot of us know about the Civil Rights Movement so education about hosting forums and specific roles is very helpful.
guest_73682 : I am willing to pair up with a new chair to help them get off the ground and move towards an active precinct.
QCityMetro’s report on the presentation is here. An advance report on this website about Koontz’s plans is here.
Below the video is a copy of Koontz’s draft proposal for a “We The People Alliance.” It may be downloaded as a PDF here.
