City Councilor Steve Dondley
At Mayor Sullivan’s community picnic earlier this week, I had the opportunity to chat a bit with Harry Rock, the former Executive Director for Westfield’s YMCA and the person currently leading the organization of festivities to celebrate Westfield’s 350th anniversary in 2018. I was immediately struck by Harry’s relentless, upbeat optimism and positive spirit. My encounter with Harry lifted my own spirit. He reminded me of all the great people in Westfield working to build and improve our community.
It’s easy to forget about people like Harry. They aren’t attention seekers. They aren’t out for personal glory or looking for accolades. They do what they do because they know their work is important and needed. Harry and others like him understand that civic life isn’t about figuring out what can be extracted from it, it’s about finding ways of contributing to make civic life better for others.
There are hundreds and thousands of people like Harry across Westfield. Day in and day out, they quietly do their work helping to organize sporting events, holding bake sales, staging cultural events, going to meetings and doing whatever they can in large ways and small to enhance our community and improve the lives of others.
We live, however, in very cynical times. And the ease with which we can now communicate has given voice to extremely cynical, toxic individuals who build themselves up by doing their best to tear others down. It can be difficult to put yourself out there and risk getting mocked, maligned or even get accused of working intentionally harm your community. But the worst thing you can do is let that stop you. Instead, you must ignore the the cynics and remember they are a small minority. Remind yourself that most people are open-minded, good and well-intentioned and do your best to surround yourself with these positive people, people like Harry Rock.
The city council is currently in summer recess until late August. We will be holding a short meeting on Monday to take up urgent matters like the approval of the Columbia Greenway Trail money from the Community Preservation Account. Thanks to the Community Preservation Committee for approving the $250,000 needed by the city to keep the project moving forward. The $250,000 represents a huge chunk out of their budget and taking money from the CPA fund will leave less money for other worthy improvements to our city. Next year I will encourage the mayor to keep the rail trail item back into the engineering department’s budget. The rail trail will be an important economic engine for downtown revitalization which, over the long haul, will ultimately save residential taxpayers money by increasing tax revenues into the city. Therefore, I believe it should be a very high priority for our city.
That’s all for now. Enjoy your summer and remember to stay positive!
