Hope

I intended to write a preview of 2021 for this column, but I kept coming back to this word, “hope.” Honestly, the concept feels a bit dubious to me, especially after the insurrection of Jan. 6. A colleague of mine put it well recently: we are so starved for anything good that even the equivalent of a bag of Skittles feels like a nutritious feast. All of the memes told us that 2020 was the problem, so what changes in 2021?

I think about the work NPC is continuing into 2021, and that gives me some hope. Not because of the scale of it — to be sure, our sphere of influence is small in the grand scheme of what we’re grappling with: half a million Americans dead in a pandemic, climate change and environmental degradation, white supremacist terrorism, homelessness, criminal justice reform, school achievement gaps, and the growing income divide that’s destabilizing our democracy.   

And, yet you will find responses to so much of these timely issues on the Northside, even in this issue of the Northside News, thanks to our brilliant managing editor Oona Mackesey-Green and the group of thoughtful writers she has nurtured. Whether it’s PFAS, contamination at Oscar Mayer or the plight of people experiencing homelessness in Dane County, these issues affect our neighborhoods. You can help strengthen our democracy by reading about the candidates for the local Feb. 16 primary and April 6 general elections on pages 17-21.

As your friendly neighborhood planning council, we will continue to engage with Public Health to promote COVID testing and vaccine roll-out. We are operating FEED To Go, our free pandemic meal program that contracts with BIPOC-owned businesses and is reaching neighbors that are especially vulnerable to food insecurity.

Our Land Use Group is developing a draft vision for land use principles that address the wealth disparities tied to the lack of home ownership. We continue to support early childhood development and parent leadership through the Northside Early Childhood Zone, which recently expanded to include the Brentwood Village Neighborhood. Our Antiracism Group is supporting advocacy to oppose a new County jail while also investigating predatory towing that disproportionately impacts people of color. And then there are ongoing efforts in violence prevention and expanding childcare and teen programming access. 

Maybe talking about hope is, in fact, a preview of 2021. Best wishes to all of us in this new year. Reach out at director@northsideplanningcouncil.org.