Grassroots Action

Cities continue to make their voices heard

by Scott Dudley, Florida League of Cities

In my 35 years in politics, I can count on one hand the number of times I have had a legislator implore me to "please ask your people to stop calling me. I know your position. I am on your side now, and I will do everything I can to help you achieve your objective." These are some of the sweetest words any advocate can hear.

Thanks to your efforts and the Building Stronger Cities campaign, the Florida League of Cities advocacy team and Florida’s cities had a successful legislative session. The FLC Legislative Department was able to kill numerous bad bills or to amend them substantially to have fewer adverse impacts on your cities. They also successfully advocated for legislation that will help your cities. The success of the session is a direct reflection of the effort that each of you put into building your relationships with legislators and reaching out to them to let them know how a particular piece of legislation might impact your city and the citizens you represent.

As you know, this year we turned up the heat on legislators a little more by asking you to engage your citizens in our advocacy efforts. An unprecedented number of citizens weighed in with their legislators through emails, letters and phone calls advocating on behalf of local decision-making. To all of you who helped engage these citizens in our fight, we are grateful.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

– Margaret Meade

Of course, our work is not (ever) done. Each of you must hold your legislators accountable for their votes – the bad votes against Home Rule as well as the votes they made to support cities. Continue to offer yourselves as a resource for your legislator; invite them to your council/commission meeting to talk about why they cast the votes they did. Publicly thank them, encourage them and admonish them for their representation of your city – and your citizens.

We also are asking you to talk to the other members of your council/commission and ask them to get involved in our advocacy efforts. Another group of potential allies is former elected officials in your city. For the time they served on their council or commission, they were part of our team fighting for Home Rule. Just because they no longer hold office doesn’t mean that they have forgotten the importance of being responsive to their citizens or the recognition that the level of government that best fosters such responsiveness is municipal government.

Photo credit: MANGOSTAR_STUDIO/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS/GETT IMAGES

In polling done over the years, when educated on the role of local government, the average citizen understands and supports the concept of local decision-making. During the coming months, we need you to help us educate, recruit and engage your citizens so that next session, we can bring even greater numbers of voices to the fight. Reach out to your neighborhood associations, homeowner groups, civic clubs and other organizations and encourage these already active citizens to lend their voice to the effort to protect Home Rule.

League staff can help prepare presentations for you (or us) to speak to these groups. If each of the approximately 2,500 municipal elected officials can add one additional engaged voice to our advocacy effort, think of what we can accomplish.

Ask your citizens, your fellow council member, the person in your civic club or even a former elected official from your city to text “Home Rule” to 50457 so they can become part of the effort to save local control. Go to BuildingStrongerCities.com for more information.

Scott Dudley is the director of field advocacy and federal affairs at the Florida League of Cities.