One City

If all went according to Hoyle, City Council chambers were filled yesterday evening for the oath-taking and swearing-in of our City Council and other elected officials. I'm writing this before the fact but have attended enough ceremonies to believe it was a happy and exciting occasion, as well it should have been. 

By the dawn’s early light today we'll read news accounts of the pageantry of last night and savor and reflect at least for a moment, I hope, upon the history we have and that we make not just when we have a change of Mayor or City Council, but every day even if some days, like yesterday we do it a little more (self) consciously than the other 364.

Now that all the applause has faded and the best wishes have echoed and disappeared down the hallways in City Hall, it's time for our City Council to begin its real work and there's plenty of it. 

No matter for whom you voted last month we, as a city, now have seven neighbors whose shoulders must be broad enough to carry the (often competing) hopes and expectations so many of us have for the better days we all want for the city which we share.

These same seven will also need to have backs strong enough to carry us in the new direction we say we wish to go but, in reality, have absolutely no appetite for the adventure such exploration would require.

I'd hope that more than a handful of those who witnessed last night's ceremonies will make it a point to attend Council meetings (both the schedule of meetings and agenda is on the city's website) because it can get lonely at those desks in the front of the room.

And once the flow of congratulations has ceased, and not pretending to be able to see the future but knowing the past, I'll wait to see how quickly we go from calling upon our newly elected Council member to calling them out for all manner of failings, sometimes real but far too often imaginary.

It's very easy to criticize decisions none of us will ever need to make, most especially when we know someone else will have to. There's a fine line between constructive and destructive criticism and sometimes we accidentally confuse the latter with the former. And sometimes, it's not so accidental.

   

I've lived here a little longer than a quarter of a century and understand the impatience that so many of us have about so much of where we live. I can see how far we've come but concede that there's a lot more to be done and hope our newly elected leaders will help move us farther along and that all of us across the city will get and stay involved and not just always show up on special occasions.

Our Mayor and City Council can do anything, but they can’t do everything. Only together with each of us can they, and we, succeed.

-bill kenny