Lewiston City Council President Scott Harriman, center, and state Rep. Michael Lajoie, left, listen to Lewiston City Councilor Michael Roy during the community conversation Thursday at Connors Elementary School in Lewiston. Groups formed to help find solutions to recent violence in downtown. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — At the start of a community meeting on city violence Thursday night, host Julia Sleeper-Whiting told the crowd she was going to be a tough taskmaster. 

She wasn’t lying. 

Sleeper-Whiting, founder and director of Tree Street Youth in Lewiston, broke the crowd of about 60 into eight groups and spent the next hour running from table to table to keep those groups motivated.

Where past meetings involved a lot of people yelling at the same time, Sleeper-Whiting had this one completely under control. Everybody gathered at Robert V. Connors Elementary was there for the same reason, after all. Each and every one of them was there to put forth possible solutions to the recent wave of violence in Lewiston. 

“Every last one of you came into this room because you are proximate to this issue,” Sleeper-Whiting said. “Otherwise, you would not be taking your evening to be here.” 

The issue in question? A whole lot of gunfire and related violence in Lewiston, including deaths. Sleeper-Whiting didn’t want participants at this meeting to simply repeat what the problems are. That’s all been done before. 

She wanted the groups to really think about what they are up against. She wanted them to come up with potential solutions in a studied and deliberate fashion. 

And she meant to hold them to it. She wasn’t going to accept any low-effort nonsense on this night. She planned to push them to come up with real and viable suggestions, even if it meant having to make them rethink their answers over and over. 

“When I push you, you just lean into the process,” she told them, “because design challenges are difficult. A lot of times, we’re great at surfacing issues and problems. We got a whole list that we’ve been very effective at, but most of the time the big issues like what we’re tackling here, it’s hard to even put a name to it. Safety. Violence… There are many facets to it, but big issues are made up of a bunch of teeny, tiny problems underneath it; problems that every last one of the individuals in this room and everywhere in the community are capable of solving.” 

She made them think. She made them brainstorm. And when they were done brainstorming, Sleeper-Whiting would invite them to consider what ideas they’d come up with and pick one as the best. 

At one table, populated by Lewiston Police Chief David St. Pierre, for instance, the participants threw out a bunch of ideas together. In the end, what they liked best was a suggestion, from U.S. Department of Justice Conciliation Specialist Brandon Baldwin, that the main issues in Lewiston can be solved by putting the right people with the right ideas together in one room. 

Lewiston residents listen Thursday night as Amran Osman speaks during the community conversation at Connors Elementary School in Lewiston. The discussion focused on recent violence in downtown. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Which sounded a lot like what Amran Osman, founder of Generational Noor, said when she organized the Thursday night meeting. 

When Osman first addressed the group, she reminded them of some of the ideas they came up with the last time they got together like this. Back then, almost everybody agreed on certain concepts; concepts like providing more for the youth in Lewiston to do so they stay out of trouble, education for parents on things like gun safety, better communication between police and the public and the need for better reporting of budding problems, including the possibility of an anonymous tip line. 

A lot of problems were identified at those meetings, sure enough. But according to Osman, it was time to take the dialogue up a level. It was time, she said, for a design challenge. 

“What a design challenge is that we put together a plan as a group, identify the problems that we can solve, and then figure out a way that we’re going to solve it,” she told the group. “So we pinpoint the problem and pinpoint solutions together, and then you’re able to work with those around you to hold each other accountable. And we’re able to come back together and put together solutions. It holds us accountable as community members, but then also, you’re making a change within your community.” 

And so, with Sleeper-Whiting literally running from one table to the next to keep the participants engaged, the groups got to work. Sleeper-Whiting had posed a simple incomplete question to them: “The problem we want to solve is…” 

It was up to the groups to finish that sentence, and Sleeper-Whiting had no intention of letting anybody off with lazy work. If what the groups came up with felt somehow incomplete, Sleeper-Whiting would push them to be clearer; to drill down further or to otherwise take another look to make their suggestions even better. 

Sleeper-Whiting’s enthusiasm was infectious. Whenever she nudged the groups to work harder, the people within them bent over their tables and began to address these new ideas at once. The people were engaged. Sleeper-Whiting made sure it was so. 

In the end, the groups came up with a list of things that need to be done to combat the almost-daily violence and mayhem in Lewiston. 

Young folks between 14 and 25 years old need to have something to do to steer them away from bad elements. 

Parents have to be taught how to recognize if their children are drifting toward problems.  

When the youngsters do start to break bad, their criminal behavior needs to be reported, no ifs, ands or buts. 

Nobody expects this one meeting alone will put an end to the chaos presently vexing the city. But for those trying to manage that chaos, it’s a step in the right direction.  

“I appreciate the community members who came together tonight to build trust and understanding,” Mayor Carl Sheline said. “This is what I know: the people of Lewiston care about each other and their city.”