MANCHESTER, N.H. – Ward 5 residents gathered at the Manchester Community Resource Center for two hours on Saturday morning in what could become the beginning of a group dedicated to advocating for Center City issues with a consistency and scope not seen before.
Facilitated by Ward 5 resident Owen Westover, the meeting of this Ward 5 Community Council sought to identify issues that are not being addressed in their neighborhoods and discuss strategies on how to make decision makers pay closer attention to those concerns. While groups such as this one had begun in the past, they slowly faded away due to a lack of actionable goals, leadership from groups outside of Ward 5 draining away personal investment for residents and the transient nature of many residents in the area among other theories.
Westover, who works within the Office of Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais but made it clear that he was at this event on his own behalf and not as part of his job, hoped to rekindle and refocus the desire for community improvement that has been held and been languishing within the neighborhood.
“There have been a lot of one-off meetings and conversations with residents, but nothing that’s been regularly going on,” he said. “This is one of the most diverse wards in the most diverse city in the state of New Hampshire. We should have all those voices coming together and having conversations on how to unify as advocates for things that we believe in.”
The meeting held plenty of discussion over problems that exist within Ward 5’s neighborhoods including drug dealers, late-night fireworks, littering, potholes, insufficient infrastructure for disabled people and many more. However, the crux of the meeting centered around the fact that everyone felt that their elected officials either ignored them or were too overwhelmed to provide significant assistance.
While three current state legislators representing Ward 5 (Karen Hegner, Kathleen Paquette, Kathy Staub) and current Ward 5 Board of School Committee member Jason Bonilla were in attendance, residents at the meeting frequently mentioned the difficulty in getting the attention of elected officials and city staff to their neighborhoods to address concerns.
Westover’s hope is that the group can gather and be led by Ward 5 residents seeking not only to gain a sense of control over addressing concerns to government but also making it easier for government officials to hear and address those concerns.
“We had our representatives here today talking about the fact that doing community outreach is part of their work and having the community leading their own meetings and bringing everybody to the table and create more open dialogue and better conversations that are brought to higher levels of decision making,” said Westover.
The group agreed to meet six times a year on the second Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to noon moving forward, with the next meeting coming in August.
Anyone interested in more information about the group can contact Westover on Facebook or by emailing him at owen.j.westover@gmail.com