Editorial - Voting 2008 By Richard L. Lelonek

The Belair-Edison community can be proud of itself for their voting turnout. It was one of the largest in decades.

However, involvement did not/does not stop on November 2, 2008. It is a 365 days a year involvement. WE – all of us – have a responsibility and duty to be involved in every aspect of national life, starting with our own community.

HOW? Look around you. See what needs attention in the community to make it better. Come to community meetings. There is only one a month, and there you can voice your opinions, complaints. Exchange views at the meetings with other neighbors. Silence is not golden but rusted when no one takes an interest in your block, the blocks around you, the whole neighborhood.

Richard L. Lelonek

Belair-Edison's Future

At the October 7th community association meeting an ongoing topic came up - again: Belair-Edison's future.

• What path are we, residents of this neighborhood, going to take?
• Are we going to band together and reclaim our neighborhood?
• Or are we going to flee to another area in the city/county/state hoping that the problems in Belair-Edison will not follow us?

There were about 30 people at the meeting - this in a neighborhood of about 6,900 households - so just that tells us that we are NOT sticking together.

So what do we do? It was suggested:

• Instead of going to the meetings and complaining and whingeing about issues that affect us, come to the meeting with a solution to the problem and asking for help in bringing this solution about.
• When you see something that is not right, call 311 or 911 even if it is not directly affecting you. If you let things slide because they are not happening to you, the problem will come knocking at your door eventually.
• When there are trips to City Hall to present issues concerning Belair-Edison, we must gather as many people as possible to show unity within the community.
  

Something else that may help is to volunteer with the community association. Only 10 - 15 people do all the grunt work in the association.

• planning events
• zoning issues
• safety issues
• sanitation issues
• fiscal issues
• communicating all this to the community

If you have a little time to spare, please e-mail beca3412@hotmail.com or call 410-485-5083 . The Belair-Edison Community Association board invites you to help out.

If you do not want to be involved with the whole community you can do as a neighbor said "...if neighbors would begin to look at just their block and what could be done to improve it, that would make a huge difference overall. Some look at the problems in BECA as a huge problem but our problems can be solved one block at a time. Sometimes what is done on one block can be the solution for another block, and another until every block has a solution."

When more people are involved in the community we make it a much better place, a place we can be proud of.