A Celebration of Community Involvement

Friend and Fellow Activists:

Next Saturday evening there will be an event in Plymouth called “A Celebration of Community Involvement”, which I hope you can attend.

It’s a party of sorts –with food and live entertainment, co-sponsored by the community groups FORT and OPEN, and celebrating what these groups, and many more in our town, have in common: a belief in the power of the individual citizen.

My personal take on these two groups, is as follows:

FORT is the grassroots organization that is trying to establish a permanent citizens organization dedicated to improving the quality of community services, especially schools, in Plymouth. They don’t want to have to re-invent such an organization every time there is a school funding crisis.

OPEN is a group of residents who are concerned that, under the guise of reforming the historic structure of our town government, a group which thinks we can do without many important town services is making a grab for power.
OPEN is committed to looking at every possible structure or modification to the town’s charter that could make it more responsive to citizens, and more effective overall.

You don’t have to believe that our existing form of government is perfect to support OPEN –only that more involvement by citizens, not less, should be one guiding principal of all allegedly democratic institutions.

You don’t have to believe that increased funding will necessarily improve Plymouth’s schools to support FORT –but you should believe that without quality schools our town will never reach its potential, no matter what form of government we have.

We are less than three weeks away from one of most important town elections in Plymouth’s history: a day which will impact the future of our community in a hundred different ways.
On April 29th, from 7-11 p.m. you can meet members of FORT and OPEN, enjoy the camaraderie of some of your community’s grassroots leaders, have a bite, take a breath, and go forward with confidence that Plymouth is not only growing larger, it is growing wiser.

Frank Mand,
Parent, Little League Umpire, Deval Patrick Delegate, MoveOn Organizer, Yellow Journalist, and Taxpayer (not necessarily in that order)

A Celebration of Community Involvement
Saturday, April 29, 7 P.M.
Quintals Warehouse, Scobee Drive, Plymouth Industrial Park
Directions to the Event