Eight neighbors, one kitchen table, and a folder full of agendas nobody else was going to read.
The Coastal Pinellas Civic Coalition was founded in 2017 because finding out what your county commission did, after it had already done it, is no way to live in a democracy. Seven years and 38 meetings later, we are 2,400 neighbors who would rather run the agenda than read the recap.
A coalition, not a movement. Coalitions show up on Tuesday.
We are public school teachers, nurses, retirees, line cooks, two pastors, a marine biologist, a bus driver, and roughly forty people who describe themselves on the sign-in sheet as "tired." What we share is a stubborn belief that local decisions are made in rooms you can walk into.
The Coalition does five things, week in and week out: monthly meetings, candidate vetting for local races, ballot-petition canvasses, a county-commission watchdog rotation, and the food-and-childcare logistics that make showing up possible for the people who actually need to be in the room.
We do not endorse federal candidates. We do not run protests as a primary tactic. We do not accept corporate-PAC dollars.
Five things we put on the wall above the agenda table.
- 01
Show up where decisions get made. The commission chamber on a Tuesday afternoon, not the comment thread at midnight.
- 02
Publish the homework. Agendas in advance, votes out loud, follow-up the next week. Civic engagement is record-keeping with eye contact.
- 03
Stop confusing posting with organizing. A signature on a petition. A phone call to a commissioner. A neighbor at a meeting. Those count.
- 04
Make showing up possible. Childcare on the agenda. Spanish interpretation booked in advance. Bus routes printed on the flyer.
- 05
Win small and on schedule. The short-term-rental cap passed because we kept showing up to a boring zoning subcommittee for eleven straight months.
The people whose names are on the sign-in sheet first.
The Coalition is run by a seven-person Steering Committee elected at the annual meeting in January, plus a four-person Tech & Data team that handles the unglamorous infrastructure. Everyone is a volunteer.
Steering Committee
Lena Okafor
Executive Director · Dunedin
Marcus Chen
Steering Committee Chair · Clearwater
Imani Reyes
Petitions Lead · Largo
Daniel Brakkenberg
Candidate Vetting Lead · St. Pete
Sara Heinz
Treasurer · Palm Harbor
Tomás Vega
Volunteer Coordinator · Tarpon Springs
Yvette Booker
Communications · Safety Harbor
Tech & Data Team
Priya Iyer
Tech & Data Lead · Largo
James Whitfield
Web & Email · Clearwater
Anna Morgenstern
Analytics + scorecards · St. Pete
Kenji Park
Volunteer scheduling · Dunedin
Two thousand four hundred neighbors. One first-Tuesday meeting away.
Membership is free. The work is real. Bring a pen — we still take attendance.
Join the Coalition