Avondale Estates: A Community of “We”
A version of this text was submitted as a letter to the editor in Decaturish for its mid-October Voter Guide.
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“We are, and have always been, a part of the world. We do not stand above it. We are ‘involved’ with the world. This word has a sense of not just participating, not just complication, but also of a curling inward, a coiling we call ‘involution.’ We are coiled into the world, nestled inside its processes, wound into its forms.”
— Dr. Ha Nguyen, How Oceans Think
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Now that I’m running for Avondale Estates City Commissioner, a lot of people have asked: ”What is Avondale's greatest strength?”
For me, it’s our sense of community. I’ve never met anyone who’s been here who hasn’t said “I love Avondale!” Whether they’ve lived here 50 years or 50 days, or visited 100 times or 1 time, the refrain is often the same. Over the next few weeks, you’re going to hear this a lot from me and my fellow candidates. And it’s the truth, because it’s what we all believe, and we all want to see our community thrive.
That’s why I feel compelled to clarify what I mean when I say “community.”
When I hear people around town talk about campaign issues, I’ve heard a few common comparisons for different facets of the city and its culture: Old Avondale and New Avondale. Commercial and Residential. Historic and Annexed. Apartments and Homes. Special Tax Districts. “Beyond the Hedges.”
When I pay close attention to the context, it’s easy to see the “Us Vs. Them” mentality in many of these comparisons.
Language is powerful. These distinctions worry me, especially if my fellow candidates are persuaded by polarizing voices who use this language as divisive (and even more so if they adopt it and influence others to view our community as divided into different camps).
It worries me because when it comes time to serve, it’s critical that elected officials avoid making decisions with these delineations as our basic assumptions. As public servants, we serve the entire city at once, which is a single community, indiscriminate of its various parts.
A Commissioner’s duty is to represent every resident who has the opportunity to vote in the election, no matter who they vote for, which kind of home they live in, or what side of North Avondale Road that home falls on.
We also represent the small businesses who own their properties and have poured their lives into our community but who don’t have an opportunity to vote on issues that impact them, and we represent business owners and managers who rent, not to mention the hundreds of workers who aren’t community residents.
We also represent everyone who wants to use our incredible parks and public spaces to bike, run, walk, fish, picnic, play after school with their friends, host their weddings at the Lake, or throw birthday parties at the Town Green.
We also represent the thousands of people who spend their hard-earned money with Avondale Estates businesses, and those who hope to make Avondale their home one day and join us in building our community from the inside out.
Everything we do in our capacity as City Commissioners has an impact on the entire community. Elected officials need to emphasize “we” over “I” any time we make decisions, and we must never act from a place of “us vs. them.” We should represent our community by celebrating the opportunity we have to live in such a wonderful place. We have to make continual investment in making it clean, safe, beautiful, and welcoming for anyone sharing it, whether that’s for 10 minutes, 10 years, or 10 decades.
That’s what a community of “we” looks like to me, and that’s what I’ll represent if elected as Avondale Estates City Commissioner. Feel free to reach out to me at dan4avondale@gmail.com or find me at any of my upcoming campaign events: https://www.dan4avondale.com/meet-with-me