David Rodeback's Blog

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Thanks Plus

Here's my two-minute statement from the public comment period at tonight's American Fork City Council meeting. Thanks to all who came to help me deliver this little thank-you note, and to everyone else who joined in for the very satisfying ending. Thanks also to those (scattered from Disneyland to the American Fork Junior High auditorium) who wanted to attend but couldn't.

Mayor Hadfield and members of the council, I rise to thank you in behalf of over 1000 American Fork voters, who were outvoted on the road bond last month. We are voters who can do math. We try to get the facts straight. We understand that fixing the roof is a better solution than piously proclaiming the moral superiority of getting rained on in our living rooms.

So thank you for studying our road situation carefully and responsibly, and proposing to the voters a sensible approach.

About those who are leaving the council, I quote with permission something two residents wrote to me over the weekend: "We are so appreciative of the rationality with which [Councilmember Rodeback] and [Councilman Nielsen] have approached issues before the city council."

To those who will continue, thank you in advance for acting courageously and intelligently on important matters yet to come. No doubt, the zealots who seduced low-information voters last month will keep working to administer political punishment to anyone they find guilty of daring to govern responsibly.

Therefore, we voters must begin to acknowledge that the price of good and sensible local government includes publicly and privately upholding good and sensible leaders, and defending them -- defending you  -- against those who would destroy, from neighbors who prefer ideology over reality, to some legislators who smugly celebrate their power to starve local governments of funding.

I thought someone ought to thank you all publicly for acting well this year. I applaud each of you, and all of you together, for keeping faith with the people of American Fork. I think there might be a few other people here who would like to applaud you as well. Thank you.

(The applause which followed -- for them, not for me -- lasted quite a while, and it was the important statement. Sometimes things go exactly as you hope.)

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