Time for action: Here's your chance to tell politicians and media what's important to you

We’ve heard your complaints about the government, politics and the news media.

You’re tired of the negativity and feeling you aren’t heard. And as journalists who live here, too, we want you to feel heard, and we want to be participants in improving life, not a part of the problem.

So, several local newsrooms and a civic engagement organization are making an offer: Let’s replace the anger and despair by quickly identifying where we agree and what can be done.

You can get this started by using an online brainstorming application called Polis from your cell phone or computer. Read the question – currently “What is needed to help people have a better life?” – and then vote on the ideas proposed by others that pop up on your screen and contribute your own ideas, too. At the bottom of the web page, you can see in real time which ideas are emerging as most unifying – and where there might be insurmountable differences.

It's free and you can be anonymous, join at any time and invite others. It even can be addictive − you could have a winning idea.

And stay tuned, because people will add new ideas to consider, and the questions will change. You’ll have a chance to go deeper on the ideas you like the most, consider the ideal qualities in elected leaders and think about what motivates people to vote.

Later, we’ll have an in-person event to celebrate and discuss next actions.

Throughout, your local journalists will provide periodic updates. They have wide reach in the Akron area, so the growing crowd wisdom will be witnessed by lots of people.

More importantly, journalists will see what is important to improving life in the community and use that to hold leaders accountable. You’ll see your work – the community wisdom – in those stories.

Get started by going to this website: https://pol.is/6mhvipxs2z

Partners in this project are the Akron Beacon Journal, Signal Akron and WKSU-FM/Ideastream Public Media and Fighting to Understand, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit with experience designing and holding difficult conversations.

Last year, Fighting to Understand held several meetings following the Jayland Walker shooting that helped the community find common ground on guns, policing, mental health and more.

The Akron Bar Foundation and Akron Community Foundation are funders of this project.

Questions can be emailed to Ted Wetzel, ted.wetzel@fighting-to-understand.us, or Doug Oplinger, oplingerdoug@gmail.com