Letter writing campaign to protest violence at downtown nightclubs

[corktownyuppie]

This is great work. However, from my experience, you will get no response, except, from the politicoes and that will be boiler-plate stuff.

I would like to be wrong, so if you do hear back, please let us all know from who and the character of the reply.

As an example, last year sumemr I wrote to Chief Evans about a particularly horrible outrage visited upon two businessmen in SW Detroit and the subsequent refusal of the Commander to meet with them, accept an appointment or even leave his office while they were waiting to talk with him. he made them cool their heels for hours until they gave up and left.

My letter to the Chief was sent return recept requested and it was refused at 1300 Beaubien. Then I sent it by email, having been assured that the Chief did read his emails. WRONG. Some sargeant reads the emails and after more than a week awaiting a response, I tracked him down internally and he admitted that he had not read them "for several days."

My experience is also that people no longer read letters of any length at all. Three paragraphs at the most. Very few people will even open USPS mail any more. Best to get some cell phone numbers and text most people. Other people in business weigh inhere. Do you agree that polite, pertinent response to mail is down?

Thanks... I play the "chief executive" role in my business as well as a small organization, and I will say that even at my low level of the business and political world, it is very, very, very difficult to return all of my incoming correspondence.

It's all about leverage. If one of my "constituents" calls me with a complaint, I hear it. If one of them calls me with a complaint, and then 7 more write me a letter complaining about the same thing, I stop what I'm doing and put my attention on dealing with it.

I don't expect a response from anyone, let alone a face-to-face appointment with a precinct chief or councilman. But if Rick Tressler, the manager of the Kales building, can get Ken Cockrel on the phone from his cell phone while in an elevator...then Cockrel gets 20 signed copies of letters...and then the developers over at Broderick Tower start getting multiple copies of the same letter, as well as the chairman of the DDA, all the city council members, the police chief and precinct commander, and then Ilitch and Gilbert....you can bet there will be conversations about this.

In other words, I'm not relying on Bing or Godbee's desire to make *me* happy. I'm leveraging their motivation to make all the downtown developers and bigwigs happy. Another example: Fred Beal doesn't care what I have to say. He doesn't even care what 20 people on DYes have to say.

But when we tell him that his target market for his swanky new luxury apartments are gonna have second thoughts? You can bet he'll drop what he's doing and deal with this.

Everybody has a boss, whether you're Mike Ilitch or one of the groundskeepers at Comerica Park. Getting people's attention is just a matter of tapping into who that person's "boss" is...and start amping up the pressure.