We read with interest our story in Saturday's edition about Keep Vincennes Rolling wanting to hold an invitation-only meeting next week with the movers and shakers in the community to sort of pick their brains about bike lanes and trails in Vincennes.
Our interest was peaked not so much by the subject of the meeting (we're all for including bike lanes wherever possible and believe bike trails would add value to the community), but in why such a gathering should be by invitation only — why it should be a private affair rather than a public event.
“We want to garner some controlled input from some community leaders on where they want to see bike lanes,” said Amber Gerkin, one of the leaders of Keep Vincennes Rolling and an organizer of the meeting. “We need some honest feedback because we don't want to throw our effort into creating routes that the community won't support.”
The invitation letters were sent to individuals and groups who had been “identified” as supporters of Keep Vincennes Rolling, and to those who have “an interest in making our community a bike friendly community.”
We're guessing there are those who qualify as members of the latter group who didn't get invitations.
That Keeping Vincennes Rolling exists is testament to the fact there are those in the community all for bike lanes.
It is also true that some in the community, probably about equal in number to the membership of Keep Vincennes Rolling, believe bike lanes and trails are a waste of taxpayer dollars and an encroachment on the rights of property owners.
Most of the community, however, is at best ambivalent about whether they are good things — mainly because most in the community just don't know enough about the issue to have an informed opinion about them.
We think they would like to know more. And once they knew more, we're pretty sure most would support “making our community a bike friendly community.”
We can understand members of Keep Vincennes Rolling not wanting to devote their efforts to “creating routes that the community won't support.”
But the best way of getting that support is to reach out to the community at large and not a select group of sympathizers.
We're reminded of the story of Benjamin Franklin's explaining how he was going to go about raising money for what would become the first volunteer fire department in America.
First, Franklin said he was going to see all those who he knew would give him money for the cause.
Then he was going to visit with all those who might give him money.
Lastly, he was going to see those he was sure he couldn't in any way persuade to lend their financial support to starting a fire department.
“But Ben, why are you going to waste your time with the last group? You know they won't give you any money.”
“Because I might be wrong.”
We believe members of Keep Vincennes Rolling are good people who have come up with a bad idea as to how to get community support for bike lanes on city streets.
If you're looking for community-wide support, you don't start out be excluding most of the community from having an opportunity to share in the process.
Instead of sending out invitations to selected movers and shakers, Keep Vincennes Rolling should plan a public open house to share its ideas about the future of the community.
Because they are pretty good ideas.