A Response to Steve Spanier
In his President’s Message of July 15 in the Oakmont News, Steve Spanier speaks at length about both the virtues of community activism and how it can become suspect in the age of social media.
With pride he touches on his own involvement with activism working for [societal] change, and how social media is contributing to bring cohesiveness to civic movements.
But his focus turns to the dark side of the medium, which research links to anxiety, depression, lack of sleep and suicide. Additionally, participation in online forums creates filter bubbles, the state wherein participants are removed from reality.
Speaking of Oakmont’s activists, Spanier presents them as peering over walls and under rugs to find truth, and motivated by a variety of deep seated needs. While their contributions expose ideas to more people, they also can go off the rails. They are apt to lurch from fact into conspiracies, innuendo and outright nonsense, which spawn outrage and holy righteousness. “Before long, villagers look for pitchforks and prepare for war.”
Our president continues that many Oakmonters are put off by the childish and angry attacks by opponents, and that he is very concerned for the reputations of these local activists.
“Here in Oakmont, we have our share of community activists. They peer over walls and under rugs to find truth. They’re motivated by a variety of deep-seated needs, but their goal is common: to be on the lookout for poor governance and to sound the alarm when they find it.”
~ Steve Spanier
How are we to interpret this stark representation of our fellow neighbors and activists? Is it an evenhanded synopsis of those among us who rise up and take issue with proposals generated by the Board of Directors? Are we really the victims of our unstable emotions, giving way to conspiracies and holy righteousness?
I believe that Steve Spanier is much closer to the truth when he argues that: “My experience taught me to support and believe in the power of community activism. Activism helps people to think about important issues. It plants the seeds of change.”
Community activism in our village has redirected an expensive project for a new office building on the greensward, and lately caused the conversion of tennis courts to pickleball. It is to be hoped that serious questioning, relating to the proposed subsidy of the OGC by OVA, will find a thorough hearing and an open mind by our village leaders, rather than the voicing of derision, scorn and blame.
Source: “Community Activism and Social Media” by Steve Spanier
Yvonne makes a particularly important point. While Steve’s point about the use of social media is one I agree with, I do not see it as the dark side of Oakmont life. Certainly, there are those who use the anonymity of social media to vent or take advantage by making it personal. I have noted that this year the dialogue has been civil, useful and with an intent to inform. If the “activist” is silent, then the activist must stand aside and let things happen for good or not. Activism is a useful and important part of our social fabric.
I was again disappointed (but no longer shocked) to see how Spanier, himself, went off the rails and to the dark side, just as he did in the Candidates’ Forum when publicly denigrating the staff of Oakmont News reporters, some of whom were in the room. My impression is that Steve has lofty ideals with much difficulty in living up to them. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I’m reminded of the saying, “we teach what we need to learn”, so maybe it is Steve who has lessons to learn about communication and leadership. Unfortunately, that comes at Oakmont’s expense. I am also reminded of another current leader who continually seeks to demonize his critics and squelch dissent, which doesn’t make for healthy governance. We can do better.
I just re-read Spanier’s President’s Message here: https://oakmontvillage.com/article/what-must-a-president-be-and-do/
and found this promise to be in conflict with his latest one:
“In the Oakmont I envision, residents would be less afraid to state their opinions, safe in the knowledge they will not be attacked. Important discussions on social media platforms would be heard by many more people because these platforms would be much more popular and influential.”
“I was again disappointed (but no longer shocked) to see how Spanier, himself, went off the rails and to the dark side, just as he did in the Candidates’ Forum when publicly denigrating the staff of Oakmont News reporters, some of whom were in the room.”
To be fair, Julie, almost all of the non-incumbent candidates for board positions in the last election chose to denigrate the Oakmont News reporters at that meeting.
To my knowledge, Steve Spanier is the only one who apologized publicly soon afterwards.
Yvonne, thank you for another well crafted and insightful perspective.
Florentia,
You are correct that Steve apologized, but so did Heidi Klyn as well and at least one of the others who did not get elected. It is evident to most rational folks that what a person says originally is closer to the truth than the redaction or apology.
To me it was the harshness of the comments that stood out, especially since the Oakmont News team worked for many hours directly with each candidate so that all of their information would correctly be printed and presented in each Oakmont News prior to the Forum. It is interesting to note that Steve was the only one who actually apologized on the phone or in person to me or other writers.
Yvonne: It was interesting for me reading Steve’s article where he tagged many of the people who write or helped create this website as over zealous activists. He labels people and this site in a very negative light, saying that we are spawning “outrage and holy righteousness…”.
Here is the kicker folks… what he wrote and how he communicated it creates the exact effect that he says this site and NextDoor are supposedly emanating to the Oakmont Community. By labeling, pointing fingers (be it passive or not) he seems to be “motivated by a variety of deep-seated needs”(his words) to express his views and convince people to agree with him or get on board.
Personally I like Steve very much and got to know him during the time that I was in Oakmont, but I am just perplexed at his focus on all of this buzz that happens. What I believe is that if we give more energy towards understanding the words and actions of others, rather than denigrating or labeling them, then people will not feel threatened to share their true perspective. In doing so the person will then feel included and be more motivated to be involved in the community. We have to keep in mind that each one of the new Directors were willing publicly to trash myself and the Oakmont News, where now they seem to be above it all.
The Oakmont News, and the Directors at times, have decided to mute or gloss over many newsworthy aspects of living in Oakmont. By doing that they inadvertently will sometimes create the very thing they think is bad… divisiveness.