The Localest of Local

An exciting thing is the neighborhood association general meeting today. I always feel obligated to note strenuously that a (usual) neighborhood association in Japan is not analogous to a (usual) homeowners association of the United States, in that it has nothing to do with preventing outrages such as the existence in the neighborhood of, say, fences, or people, of unauthorized color. Rather, it is a hyper-local semi-democratic (rotating) government that oversees things such as neighborhood cleaning, street-lighting, festivals, disaster preparedness, relations with municipal and higher governments, children’s activities, and so forth.

Our annual budget is around three million yen (let’s say $25,000). It is subsidized (or delegated if you like) by the city to perform functions that the municipality would rather not. For example, every association has a disaster shed stocked with emergency food and supplies that is paid for by the city.

Membership in the association is optional. Some folks opt out. However, there is implied pressure to belong and pay dues as a household because one will benefit from the association in situations such as disasters, and one benefits from things such as beautification and street lighting by simply living here.

I have been the vice president of our association for the past year. Although my volunteer fire service exempts me from the duty of assuming one of the rotating two-year directorships of the association, last year I took one anyway, because the board of directors and presidency were struggling to have meaningful meetings and get things done. The president promptly made me a vice president under him.

To toot my own horn: I stepped into the facilitator role of those meetings and we made a lot of progress. I offered many opinions but also elicited many, chiefly through the method of not letting a single member of the meeting remain silent on important issues. Awkward silences happened, but the opinions were extracted and ultimately folks did their job of opining and deciding.

The meeting today will cover a few important things. One is to gain permission to revise the association bylaws, which remain lamentably oriented to Showa-era numbers of active (not super old) residents and Showa-era households, in which a father works and a mother is home all of the time. For example, the bylaws dictate specific boundaries of sub-groups in the association and numbers of directorships, which means that with our current aged state and diminished numbers, the healthy and active and willing residents must serve very frequently. We must revise the required number of positions downward and consolidate sub-groups.

It is a microcosm of Japan as a whole, really: Once-thriving municipalities have dwindled and really need to be (and have been, in droves) combined with others for efficiency, the sad loss of the individuality of communities notwithstanding.

We will also select a new president today. The previous one did his very best and was effective in many ways. He was not the type of person to take charge and pursue objectives, much less a vision, and so the results were mostly safe driving in the usual direction. He had become president after the previous one died in office. The one who died in office was selected absent of and largely against his will.

The way a president is traditionally elected in our association is for everyone to vote by secret ballot, with the person who garners the most votes winning. This is all normal, except people rarely stand for the office. That means a man such as the late previous president, who was not really up to the task, can be elected. This can negatively affect outcomes, and did.

So for the past year, knowing that our current president was not desirous to continue after this term (he is over 80 years old), I have been campaigning to get a very capable man who is a spry 70 or so to stand for the office, or at least commit to serving if we all vote for him. Last night at another political meeting I took him aside and buttonholed him for a final confirmation that he would indeed accept. He said yes.

In the meantime, I had done my duty as director by distributing the notice of convocation of the general meeting along with proxies people could (should) submit if unable to attend. To my surprise, six of my neighbor households delegated their proxies to me personally. So I have seven votes to throw toward my candidate in today’s meeting. I am drunk with power.

I will serve at least another year as a director and may or may not remain a vice president, since it is the prerogative of the new president. I hope I remain as vice president so can keep facilitating meetings. We will modernize our whole organization this year while also returning activities to full pre-covid levels, albeit in a modernized way that is less burdensome on households where most adults now work full time.

This is the kind of admittedly-sometimes-drudgery work that affects our life and community far more than a national election usually does. I love doing it and love that my neighbors have trusted me to do it. Or at least they have lazily calculated that it is easier to have me do it than them, if I am so foolishly inclined. Yeah, it’s a little of both.