Stirring the Pot

The last several days have been kind of interesting. Early last Sunday morning 8-10 shots were fired in rapid succession within about a hundred feet of our house. Wish I could say it was the first time it had happened, but then I'd be a big fat liar. So the police came, looked around, and told one of the neighbors that it was just a BB gun. Wrong! - especially since the neighbor found shell casings scattered on the ground later that morning.

The whole thing got me all riled up. I spent Sunday and Monday trying decide what, if anything, I could do about it. I finally decided to do something that I'm reasonably good at, which is to instigate, irritate and aggravate. I wrote an "Open Letter to Ogden" which I began sending out by email Wednesday morning at about 9:00. (If you feel compelled to read it, here is a link to the letter, which was posted by the local newspaper on its web page Friday morning. If you don't want to, that's ok too.)
http://www.standard.net/live/opinion/flowersanddarts/165012/

So, by 10:30 I had received two emails from the mayor, calls and emails from Police officials, and a detective had been assigned to follow-up on the 'shots fired' report. Throughout the day I heard back from the mayor again, more police & city officials, educators, friends, etc. I'll admit that I wanted to stir things up a bit, the responses have surprised me. People seem to be thinking and talking about the state of our city and what can be done, which is what I was hoping would happen. I've had dozens of calls and emails about it since Wednesday. Maybe one voice can make a difference!