It may seem like a trivial act, but if you bring a couple of civically engaged friends in on this chance to take power by voter petition, and they each then do the same with a couple of their friends and so on, the two or three signatures you so enjoyably witnessed will have resulted in much more than just thousands of signatures. Thousands of New Yorkers will have had conscious conversations about a democracy and decided to enact a new and overdue form of it that's simultaneously revolutionary and prudent. In a sense, we'll have shown together that we do in fact deserve better.

Once we assemble and submit the tens of thousands of petition signatures needed, the city's government will, after a court battle, be forced under state law to place our charter amendments on the ballot and give all of the city's voters—and by their example, the world—the choice to create a much more inclusive and functional participatory democracy.

This is our town. Let's make a space for our solutions.