This morning I read that the city council is cancelling Tuesday’s meeting and I thought, where are they going? Can’t they wait until the weekend to party?

So the meeting is cancelled because of National Night Out. I’ve never heard of National Night Out, and since the Times Herald (online) offered no explanation, I googled it to try to understand a little better what is going on.

National Night Out has a website and is committed to building stronger communities through crime awareness and prevention. With as many problems as Vallejo has experienced with an impaired police force and increased poverty in California overall, why am I just hearing about it now, and why isn’t Vallejo making a bigger effort to publicize this day? Truthfully I think Vallejo should declare National Night Out, August 4, 2009 a holiday. I’m saying this not so much because of the crime, even though just about everyone on my block now has had either their car, home, or garage broken in to in the past couple of years.

One of my neighbors and I talked a few months ago and agreed that we needed to find ways to pool our resources and become more aware of our surroundings. Just the other night my garage door mysteriously opened and one of my neighbors rang our doorbell after midnight to let us know (I hope she identifies herself one day). I think this was especially thoughtful and caring of the person because our garage door faces and alley and my front door is on the other side of the block.

I wish I could do more, I wish I was the type of person that could strategize, organize and mobilize groups of people and change the world around me. Perhaps I have it in me, but have never tried - perhaps by just being here and trying hard to be a good and productive citizen I’m doing some good. I like the idea of National Night Out, but I think this spirit should be present 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And we all need to get involved to keep each other honest, and to represent diversity. It’s so easy to get caught up in us vs. them mentality. Those people who live over there, those people who talk like that, those people, those people, those people. Unless you’re part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and Vallejo needs solutions.