Lana Sutton

Thank you, Greener Chattanooga members, who got my account undeleted

Thank you, everyone who called the city, for getting my Chattanooga Green account reinstated on greenerchattanooga.com. CG has said it will no longer delete the accounts of citizens who request that the 17 Greener Chattanooga groups be made more inclusive, transparent and accessible to citizens. A group representing our government can't legally censor citizens, especially ones asking that more citizens be allowed to participate through Facebook, email blasts and Twitter, since so many of Chattanooga Green meetings are prior to 5p, thus inconvenient.

I hope you will continue asking for this inclusiveness and transparency to combat the perception that many teams are ineffective, have little citizen representation and are steered by corporate citizens seeking government grants, exceptions and incentives!

Unfortunately, my ability to email friends has been blocked, I've been removed from all my teams, and my hours of research and communications on my teams is erased, including all the links and communications with other members. This is unfortunate, since I have been very active, and head more than one subgroup.

However, all of my postings are on the very active citizens' group, Sustainable Chattanooga, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40783738010.

I've requested that Chattanooga Green put me on all of the 17 citizen teams.

Here is the blog that got me "banned" for those of you who asked to see it: Making Chattanooga Green's Grass Greener
Would you be more likely to participate in one of the city's 17 Chattanooga Green citizen advisory teams, if you could interact through email, Facebook, Twitter, or a real-time, online meeting?
After all, you shouldn't have to lose your voice or vote on a Chattanooga Green team just because you can't make a meeting time that's set during your work hours.
These teams are tasked with advising the mayor how to steward Chattanooga towards a leadership role in sustainability. And I'd hope having a job or kids wouldn't disable your participation.
Also, to avoid all confusion, I think groups dominated by corporate citizens and city bureaucrats should called "corporate citizen" teams, or lobbying groups, not "citizen" teams.
I realize that corporate citizens and bureaucrats are also citizens, but we can all acknowledge that folks in fields such as development or real estate may be perceived as having a profit or political motive for attending. I've noticed these folks also get compensated for attending the teams as business-related functions, thus are adamant about keeping meetings during work hours.
They also have a an awful lot of pet projects that aren't necessarily in the public good, such as incentives and loopholes for developers, including floating mixed-use development zones that trump the land-use plan.
For the purpose of getting more regular citizens, at least two teams are considering using their entire membership lists (of people who signed up) to get input and votes from those who can't make the meetings. The members could get mass mail outs before and after meetings by email and on the social networking sites, thus give their input or vote from home.
These teams will also try to figure out how to have meetings in real time, online (perhaps Skype). That would make these CG meetings more inclusive and transparent.
As a working person, I can no longer attend three of my 4 Chattanooga Green teams and lobbying groups. I've specifically asked that they include the citizens through email before and after decisions, especially decisions in which the mayor is advised on the public's behalf.
I would hate for Chattanooga Green to be perceived as greenwashing, and be used to advance a corporate or political agenda in the name of the green community.

Views: 2

Loop Studios Comment by Loop Studios on October 22, 2009 at 12:13am
Lana,

You still have the ability to email your friends. As a matter of fact, it's not even possible for us to limit that feature. I asked you to please hold off on sending emails to 200+ people at a time till we can explain how the friends system works to some users that are unclear on how you are sending them emails. However, it's completely up to you whether you respect that request or not.

I just looked right now in the groups, and your comments are still there. I can add you back into the groups that you were in, but you'll have to talk to Emmy or Jeremiah with Chattanooga Green about the other groups.
Lana Sutton Comment by Lana Sutton on October 23, 2009 at 5:11pm
I haven't had anyone complain to me about the messages I sent, which were only targeted at my friends list and teammates.
Also, because GC's invite system appears to have major problems, I can certainly understand why a lot of citizens can't get on these Chattanooga Green groups, or give up trying.
Also, all 17 of the teams give specific directions to contact Brad McAllister, if you want to join. He told me he no longer plays that role since his internship with the city ended. That would make those links to him a misdirect, and a real disservice to citizens who want to participate.
I clearly can't email all of my friends, not even through the forwarding mechanism anymore. That has been changed.
Lana Sutton Comment by Lana Sutton on October 28, 2009 at 9:02pm
As of today, I'm now on all 17 teams. I was deleted from my teams, and from this site, on the 17th.
Most of my team communications, research, links and photos are still gone! That suggests the vulnerability of these teams on Greener Chattanooga.
In order to encourage more citizen participation in Chattanooga Green, Sustainable Chattanooga is setting up "public" web pages for each of the 17 teams on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lanaland?ref=profile#/group.php?gid=4078373...
Loop Studios Comment by Loop Studios on October 28, 2009 at 9:49pm
There is no vulnerability here for anyone's data unless they were purposely removed. Your account removal was a mistake based on poor judgment of a staff member. Many steps have been taken to assure this will not happen again.

Facebook is no more stable than this site, noted especially by some of your events and invitations disappearing randomly from your Facebook groups. Plus, we're here in Chattanooga - not in California!

I've recieve quite a few complements on the use of this site, with a couple people who like it better than Facebook. Just depends what you are used to. Social sites are inherently complicated by nature, some will do better with them than others.
Lana Sutton Comment by Lana Sutton on November 2, 2009 at 10:03pm
My events were deleted because one of my administrators deleted them. And I'm going to assume he was hacked. He's no longer an administrator.

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