Countdown to the Future

Last night I attended one of the most magical events of my life. The bonfire staged by United Rochester was a true community occasion, where several hundred people of different backgrounds shared music, laughs, good times and a true spirit of unity. Four years ago, many of us didn't even know one another. Last night, we were a family.

Tuesday night, after all the votes are counted, this family will pick up the pieces of a Town shattered by the selfish desires of a select few and move us into the future. In their desperation to retain power over our lives, the supporters of this Town Government which has done so much harm are claiming that they want to "take our town forward." They coined this phrase in response to the popular movement to "Take Our Town Back," hoping to confuse the people of Rochester into thinking that they want progress while we want to go back to something which was less than what they have given us.

To a certain extent, that's true. We want to go back to a time when there was less backstabbing. We want to go back to a time when there was less divisiveness. We want to go back to a time when the Town Board served rather than dictated. We want to go back to a time when neighbors helped one another whether they agreed or disagreed about politics. We want to go back to a time when Rochester belonged to the people and not to the wealthy, elitist, extremist minority. We want our Town back.

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a desire to stop progress. Imagine, if you will, a man driving a car who veers off the road into a cornfield. He has two choices: stop, back up and get back on the road or keep going forward through ruts, over rocks, knocking over someone else's precious crops. If you are going forward in a direction you have no right going, a direction which is destructive to both yourself and your neighbors, that's not progress. Finding your way back to the paved road and following that to a civilized destination is progress.

One cannot go forward, one cannot have progress by destroying that which went before. If one does so, one does not progress, one simply replaces that which was already there. One does not have more than before, just something different and, in fact, one has lost all that which came before, all that precious history.

Progress is building upon that history, adding to it, giving the next generation everything we received and a little bit more. Giving them less is not an option for an enlightened society. We have a responsibility to pass along everything our forebears passed on to us and then some.

Taking our Town back is the only way to take our Town forward. The only part of that ideal which the Town Board is capable of understanding is the word "take," which is something they have done over and over again. They take our tax dollars. They take our sense of community. They take our rights to control our own homes and our destinies. They take our history and they are doing their very best to take our children's futures.

As a teenager during the 80s, I was inundated by TV shows, movies, newspaper and magazine articles, radio and TV commercials and more all hammering away at one simple, necessary message: "No Means No." Apparently, that is a message which our Town Board is unable to comprehend. Our Town, our futures, our values and principles and yes, our very virtue, belongs to us.

No Means No.

We will not allow ourselves to be taken by force. We recognize your less than honorable intent. We will take back what is ours and move forward with our lives, healing the wounds you have created in our extended family.

No Means No.

Come this Tuesday, Supervisor Duke and her cohorts will learn that lesson.

The countdown has begun and we will soon be soaring towards the future.