You can’t fight city hall.
Government doesn’t listen.
Government is so complicated I don’t know where to go or how to get things done.
Wow, that’s so complicated, I’m not even going to try.
These defeatist sentiments have had emotional currency over centuries precisely because effecting change is hard, particularly for those who are not experts in the system.
Yet there are levers ordinary people can pull to get things done.
“What not to do, I think, more so than anything, is to talk about a problem or idea that you have and do nothing, to let it fester,” said Bloomington Mayor Dan Brady.
There are also buttons one should definitely not push. This Local Democracy Playbook offers some tips for making a difference in your community through the lens of local issues.
A couple of decades ago, a landowner wanted McLean County approval to dig a gravel pit on Bloomington’s southwest side across from Fox Creek Elementary School.
“It's like, yeah, no. That wasn't going to work,” said Susan Schafer, who got involved because of concerns about dust, noise and children.
“We had a group of people, and then we kept pulling more people in,” said Schafer.
That group included people with specialty talents: money, legal, community contacts, engineering, etc.
Today, there is no gravel pit inside Bloomington. That’s thanks to the grassroots effort against it, led by Schafer and others, that included dozens of people attending zoning and county board meetings. Each speaker talked about a single point to avoid repetition. Schafer said it takes more than simply showing up with a point of view.
Patrick Mainieri, a former band director now working in nonprofit leadership, said he did not become politically active until 2022. He was public commenter number 64 of 64 at a marathon Unit 5 school board meeting after the district announced plans to cut programs, including fifth-grade band and orchestra. The board listened, although cuts came up again a year later as part of a referendum asking residents to pay additional property taxes to avoid slicing music and sports.
Today, Unit 5 still has fifth grade band and orchestra.
“People are very passionate about certain things in this community,” said Mainieri.
Mainieri slowly stepped up his political engagement. He led communications for Yes for Unit 5, which successfully campaigned for that 2023 referendum. He’s since been elected to the school board.
That’s a common thread in the gravel pit and band stories: People who began as residents with a cause went on to public service. Schafer was later elected to the McLean County Board.
Originally from metro Atlanta, Mainieri moved to Bloomington-Normal in 2013 and noticed people mobilizing for issues they care about. Quick action also led to new bike lanes for the community.
“I’d sit and think, how did that come to be?”
Schafer, Mainieri and others said change takes more than yelling at council members on Facebook. It takes a critical mass with a strategy, some influential players having your back and a willingness to turn failures into success.
About a quarter century ago [2001], the Bloomington City Council passed an amendment to its human relations ordinance outlawing discrimination in housing, employment and healthcare for same sex couples.
Jan Lancaster, owner of the LGBTQ+ friendly bar The Bistro, and Dave Bentlin, then of the Advocacy Council for Human Rights, spearheaded the effort. Lancaster said campaigning is not always a civil exchange in the marketplace of ideas.
“Some of the stuff that was said was so bizarre. I was totally shocked by it,” said Lancaster. “You got death threats. You had people from the Christian Coalition following you around downtown.”
Then-Mayor Judy Markowitz broke a tie on the council. She voted against the amendment even though she supported the proposal. Markowitz was running for re-election and feared losing. She told Lancaster to try again later. Lancaster said before the vote she knew it would probably fail. They went ahead anyway.
“I wanted it to be talked about. I wanted press about it so that people could see that this is a really important amendment. People were not being treated equally in housing. You had a partner in the hospital, you couldn't go up and see them sometimes. There were a lot of things most people take for granted,” said Lancaster.
They found a friendlier audience in Normal. It passed easily there.
During the first try in Bloomington, Lancaster said they brought in experts who showed the economic impact of discrimination. All that education missed one small resonating thing: personal stories. They changed messages the second time.
“Their spouse died. They weren't legally married, and their partner's family came in and threw them out on the streets and kept everything … The hard part was to get someone that was courageous enough to speak out … Begged them, really, that was about it.”
One council member had told Lancaster and Bentlin he thought voting for equal protection would hurt his business.
“He told me afterwards the stories that these individuals told of their personal life, that's what got him,” said Lancaster.
Everything that happens in a community requires people. Gratitude helps. Online mudslinging doesn’t.
“Respect opens doors, so that when the next issue comes up, you already have an opening to be able to walk through that door, and people will listen to you and take you seriously,” said Camille Taylor of Bloomington, who has a long record of human and civil rights activism.
Among the first times Taylor discovered her voice could be powerful was at Illinois State University. The school had proposed a fee increase for campus childcare—not a lot, but enough to impact struggling college students. She was asked to serve on an advisory board, as the first student member of the panel who was also a parent.
“The first step is getting people to listen,” she said. “If you stand back and just scream and holler and throw things at the wall, people aren’t going to give you any kind of respect, and they’re also going to know that you haven’t done the work.”
Taylor and her husband, Art Taylor, said it’s important to take a seat at the table when you see injustices in your community. Art is a founding member of Bloomington’s Public Safety and Community Relations Board, which created a mechanism for police accountability.
“Sometimes people are afraid and there’s a fear factor that my voice will not be heard,” said Art, who encouraged people to start with their own stories and get comfortable answering questions about themselves. “It’s as simple as that to address larger, more complicated issues.”
But there is an art to being effective even on small, mundane issues: a pothole, a sidewalk, a traffic signal, and so on. Bloomington Mayor Dan Brady, a former state representative, said, sure, you can go to the city manager’s office or pound your fist at the council meeting lectern. The order in which you resort to each of those methods matters.
“I think the closest form of government to the people is that elected representative in your ward,” said Brady.
Brady recommended this order of play: council person, council meeting, department head and finally the city manager’s office.
Mayor Chris Koos of Normal urged people to prepare before making an approach, saying clarity of vision and the depth and breadth of people interested in an issue matter.
“We are very open to original ideas. But they have to be tested and fine-tuned,” said Koos.
An example of an unequivocally clear message from the public came during debate a couple years ago over an ordinance regulating large pop-up parties. Koos said the council was ready to act that night—until there was thoughtful, plentiful public comment pushback.
“We heard some pretty compelling evidence from the general public that maybe we were being too strict in the original law. We tabled it and held some meetings with interested stakeholders and some of the parties, and came up with a different ordinance,” said Koos.
You also might not find all the appropriate stakeholders on your first pass. Koos said people in the music industry laid out how they could be negatively affected by what they viewed as draconian noise limits.
“That kind of communication and understanding requires some patience,” said Koos. “You can have an impact if you do it that way.”
Bloomington residents Diana and Dave Hauman love art. They have found more vibrant cities all have a robust public art process. Diana said it gives cities a sense of self and offers onlookers an idea of what that city is about.
More than a decade ago, the Haumans thought it would be a good time to create a mechanism to stimulate public art in Bloomington.
They found out art is expensive.
They established the Community Fund for Public Art at the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation so people can get tax breaks for donating to art, something they can't do if they just give to a city. They settled on a pilot effort in front of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. Diana said it was surprisingly difficult to get the city interested, even though she was a city council member at the time.
“Yeah, you can do it, but! We would take care of the ‘but.’ We’d come back and they’d go, yeah, that's good but there's another but ... They needed a concrete pad. We overcame that objection. Then they were concerned about insurance. We found out the city had an insurance policy, and we offered to cover the deductible if there was damage to the art,” said Hauman. “I can't even tell you what the next ‘but’ was. We just said, that was enough.”
They said they weren't going to beg to do this and pivoted. The Town of Normal was a more receptive audience. There are elements in the town’s strategic plan and a long-running grant program for art. A sculpture garden will be dedicated this spring in Normal. And with the notion “public art” can be defined as art on private property that is visible to the public, they also pitched an idea to the Westminster Village retirement community in Bloomington. Westminster loved it and installed a sculpture at the entrance.
Dawn Dannenbring is the director of policy and training for Illinois People’s Action [IPA], a faith-based, progressive, multi-issue organizing group in Bloomington. Dannenbring has been a community organizer on a vast array of legislative initiatives over decades. A few are: pushing banks to make credit more available to minority and moderate-income borrowers, the Illinois Climate Energy and Jobs Act to boost renewable energy and the sustainable energy economy in Illinois and payday loan legislation to cap interest rates and prevent predatory lending.
She finds commonalities across that work.
If you are just starting out on an issue, Dannenbring said it’s very hard to go solo, especially if you have not done it before. She recommended getting involved with an existing group that will take on an issue. That offers credibility when buttonholing policymakers. And come in with a proposed solution.
“The elected officials know you. They know how you work, and that when you're coming in, it's not like you're just saying, oh, I have a problem. I want you to fix it. But this is an issue we're seeing in the community, and here's what we think you could do to fix it,” said Dannenbring.
A lot of people think policymakers can be swayed to do the right or desired thing by putting just the right facts and figures before them. Dannenbring said those folks are always surprised to find that it does not work. Elected officials know how to count, and what matters is if many people are having the same problem.
For example, Dannenbring’s IPA worked on the Future Energy Jobs Act. It was almost a pilot project for the real goal, the more expansive Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which eventually passed. They knew they had to win the hearts and minds of Chicago.
“We are a faith and community-based grassroots organization. We had four clergy from four different communities go with us to talk about racial equity. They all happen to be Black pastors who could talk about what it really would look like to have a jobs bill that was racially equitable,” said Dannenbring.
The Clean Jobs Coalition picked up the issue. Collectively, they worked on a strategy. Dannenbring said IPA took on training downstate Illinois' interests about what that legislation would look like in their region and got people engaged and organized.
“When it was passed, we got invited to the signing ceremony. That was pretty cool,” said Dannenbring.
So, the next time you think there’s no way to make things better in your community, remember that famous saying often attributed to Margaret Mead:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
This article was produced through the Healing Illinois: Democracy Lives Here Reporting Project with the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub at Northwestern University. Healing Illinois — an Illinois Department of Human Services initiative managed with the Field Foundation — supports storytelling and community collaborations to address racial and systemic inequities across the state.
