When I was nominated, and accepted, the position of Co-Chair for Melrose Community Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) in Deep East Oakland in 2019, I had been visiting the area for about a year, staying in AirBnBs and getting to know people. The community told me they wanted to change things up and try new, creative, approaches to getting things done in the neighborhood.
I had never played a roll like this before and had no idea what to do, or even exactly what my job was, so I said I could help for about 6-9 months with some vision workshops to identify what folks want to put on a neighborhood roadmap. I said I would work on confirming city districts in map form, and I would expand the website to include some new features. It ended up being closer to 3 years I lived in Melrose working on many projects during that time.
Because creating new things is fun, but it can be very disruptive, I wanted to listen to what people really meant by change, as that can be subjective. 27x is the second oldest NCPC in Oakland, next to Maxwell Park, so there was/is a lot of history associated with this name and logo.
I decided to use the existing color logo and turn it into a black and white coloring book to hopefully invite people in to possibly add color and new ideas to co-create a roadmap together.
Here are some of the iterations of the Melrose maps between 2019-2022:
I took printouts of the black and white map, my first pass at boundaries, with me to the first Melrose 27x NCPC I ran as the new Chair. People found it easy to use the paper maps to take notes and write down the topics they didn't necessarily want to talk about in front of the group or in the event we ran out of time to get to everyone's comments during the short 1.5 hour monthly meetings. I would take their notes and work them into the map for the following month.
Neighbors started using the maps during our monthly meetings to point out specific intersections that were unsafe due to hazardous driving, lack of stop signs, and various traffic-related issues. This helped us focus on specific events, dates, times, and outcomes where something happened we didn't want to happen again.
This map had color added as some folks said they had a little trouble telling the difference between different grey tones used in the original map. I also added red to identify a large portion of one part of Melrose that was particularly dangerous and in need of city assistance as it was also our community park.
I was pushing for the clean up and safety measures for Courtland Creek during my entire stay and I know other community members were pushing may years before that. Finally, the state of CA stepped in with funds for environmental clean up and watershed restoration for Courtland Creek and that work is underway today. This map was back in 2022/2023.