I’ve been invited to give a 5-minute presentation at the Center City Commission’s board meeting this Thursday. The Center City Commission is the organization that plans and oversees growth Downtown, and every month they schedule time for a few “Downtown Stakeholders” to speak frankly to the board about whatever is on their mind. This is important because many of the board members themselves do not live Downtown, and so the stakeholders act as their eyes and ears in a sense.
So, this month I’m an invited stakeholder. I get a free lunch out of the deal, and although I can speak about any subject I want, you better believe I have a topic in mind: panhandling. In 5 minutes I hope to stress to the board members, as well as representatives of both mayors’ offices who will be there, how out of control panhandling (especially aggressive, illegal panhandling) has become.
I’ve been rehearsing my speech, and I have a good feeling about it – I’m getting that “YEAH! I nailed it!” feeling I got when I was a teacher and gave a really good lecture. These are the points I plan to cover:
- Brief intro of myself
- Three stories to illustrate aggressive panhandling Downtown, highlighting problem individuals and locations
- Discussion of how career street hustlers portray themselves as homeless to get sympathy donations, and how this takes money away from organizations that help the real homeless
- Evidence that panhandling is costing Downtown money – e-mails I’ve received from tourists who’ll never come back; comments from friends who won’t buy condos Downtown because of panhandling
- The Handling-Panhandling forum and how Downtowners are working together on this issue
I’ve rehearsed the speech and have it pretty well down, although I hope to run it by my forum co-moderator Mike King before Thursday. It’s a lot of material but I’ve got it down to about 5 minutes and 20 seconds (hopefully they won’t have the stopwatch on and cut me off right at 5).
Looking forward to it… maybe after I give the speech Thursday I’ll post the complete text of it here. I’ve practiced it so many times that I’ve just about got it down word for word.