FIVE STEPS TO BEING A PERFECT CC CITIZEN

1. Get a Favorite Local Band

2. Get a Project

Many of you are emailing yelling, "Get on the stick, Hilliard, and write these two out!!!" (note the three(!) exclamation points. Relax. In due time.

Here's #3 though. These are initial thoughts with a more refining pass to come in the near future. (I hear you now: "Yeah Yeah Yeah...action, not words, please.")

#3 is thus:
Demand Excellence.

Two words with amazing power. Corpus Christi--and again this may be indicative of any communtity--is a remarkably passive city. Read the caller.com blogs--any article will prove the point--for proof. Everything is everyone else's fault and all anyone can think to do is complain.

Too often we say that this organization or that council member or this ethnic group or that part of town or this large company or that restaurant or this bad driver or that red tape or this school district that graffiti gang or this downtown landowner--pick your favorite villain--is responsible for this apathy or that inaction or the this reason why the city doesn't grow or that reason that our youth are leaving and not coming back or keeping my favorite band from coming to town or these types of movies don't come to CC or those types of jobs don't exist here or that city park's grass is too high or this school doesn't meet my child's needs or that ferris wheel is not worth millions dollars on our tax rolls..blah...blah....blah.

What are you DOING?!!

Demand EXCELLENCE. Note, I didn't say complain about the lack of excellence. This step moves you from complaining to demanding. It may sound like a subtle difference, but it couldn't be more different. This requires you to become a face...a voice...a real player.

When you are dissatisfied with your meal at a restaurant do you complain to your tablemates, but eat it anyway? Or do you ask for the manager? What happens when you ask for the manager? Typically you get results, no? You get your entree cooked the way you want it? Maybe a free dessert? Gone should be the days when anyone eats their crappy food in silence, complaining only to their family.

Your family wants to see you act. They are tired of hearing you complain. And the beauty of Corpus Christi is that there is room at the table for your activism. Don't like what city council is doing? DON'T COMPLAIN! Go to a meeting and talk. Learn the process. Demand Excellence. Didn't work? Go to every meeting. Get everyone you know to go every meeting. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and you should squeak the loudest.

Don't like...what? let's pick a gripe...the state of our downtown? Learn the issue. Who is really at blame? Find them. Demand excellence. Go to their offices with 100 of your closest friends.

Our city needs to quit complaining and start demanding.

More soon.