From the Village Square

Survival, humanity's common purpose is found in the everyday and natural processes of the community.

Theses characteristics, more transparent in our view of ancient villages are not as readily observed in modern neighborhoods and communities.

The city neighborhood and small town public school brings the community together through our interest in our children and their futures. Beyond this centralizing element of common purpose, of community operated schools, the notion of commonality is splattered in every direction.

It is not until the time comes when our parents need us, or we are the ones who need our children's care and community attention that we realize that our common purpose goes beyond the mere institutions designed for our children as operated today. 

Unless the last portion of human life is to become an organized and conscious process of deterioration, a more factory-like system, it is in our common purpose to bring comfort and care to those who were once the ones to bring comfort and care to their children and grandchildren.

The life span of the ancients was comparatively short and therefore the last stages of aging not lengthy in nature. The common purpose was more readily fulfilled, given those conditions of life.  Knowledge of this human condition is not available and therefore not known to us today. 

Today, longevity, mobility and all the other factors that contribute to the general non-community factors of our settlements, present us with a need for a totally new and conscious arrangement.

Perhaps the solution is reflected in the most obvious of our available systems, the institution of the neighborhood or small town public school and perhaps primarily within the function of the high school.  The path to be taken is for us to determine today.   

*Title of Lisbeth B. Schorr's book on Families and Neighborhoods. 

Local school systems are important elements of the community not only because they serve its members but because they are of the community, perhaps schools are the community's most visible element in today's world.

The basic service of the public schools has pretty much been limited to teaching. School sports have grown out the schools' ventures into recreation. Therefore, these have become central to most of the activities of our young.

European cultures have added a segment for the care for children from birth to school age. Therefore, the community responsibility for children is fully met.

With or without fulfillment of the role for pre-school aged children, the important role of education in the United States rests mainly with the States and to be financed mainly through the State and with whatever funds it can garner from our national government.

The education and social aspects of the school falls directly within the function of community. This activity perhaps denotes the community's cerebral point or neural center. .

Another important element of community is made up of the long-term residents, those grandparents of the school children and other members of the community of that age. Do they require another community agency similar to the school system or an extension of the local school function that re-enforces this cerebral point?

It seems that the more normal evolutionary process is that the school involves itself with the elderly, at least at first, to see how that works out.

 The school could then become both the central point for children and older adults, but also the organic center for the evolution of the neighborhood and community.

Shorewood has all the ingredients of community.

What we need now is to put together all of those social elements that bring about the development of community.

It seems to me as it does to others as well, that this effort must be based on working with long-term residents of the village and with those likely to remain within or have returned to the community in order to further these community sustaining energies.

What is needed in addition to a physical central point is a centralizing community force and the intellectual or community links that make community function as one fully conscious coordinated organism.

Such an organism requires a central social cerebral element, a distributing and information receiving point, a point of consciousness.

Ordinarily this is not found in the management or organizational function of government because government itself is a non-functioning overlay of community, an inanimate shield-like skin not necessarily joined to any of the social nerves or the response nodes.

A certain amount of primeval life seems to have already been stimulated and set forth by the current actions of a certain social life-giving, life-creating agency calling itself “Shorewood's Connection Caring Communities Partnership.”

In these actions, we shall see the beginning of a new life in its formative stages. Let's watch it evolve. Let's become part of its energy creating forces.

How significant is a community like Shorewood, in the broad spectrum of a global civilization?

Communities are among the smallest social atoms that make up the structures of nations and civilizations. Yet in today's world, we've been getting reports back from relatives and friends in Sweden and in Canada who are reading my blogs and giving their comments.

So no community is insignificant. Each unit is one of the building blocks of the broader civilization. We, in Shorewood are just as much a part the of the rest of the world as they are a part of us. Nothing need go unnoticed and no community or person is without significance to the broader physical and social structure.

Our human base, our humanity is of greater importance today that it has ever been. The interchange of ideas, goods and technologies has become part of humanity's main function. War and preparation for war, although still to be contended with is an outrageous ancient tribal appendage of humanity that must go.

Now we can begin developing and expressing our ideas at home and throughout the world and work for the greater good of all humanity, in the villages, in the cities, in the nations and in all international organizations.

 The cities to survive shall devolve  into numerous village-like units, evolutions of suburban organisms.   

Globalization to most of us means buying more and more of our daily goods from somewhere else.

The term human globalization however, brings with it a different thrust, a different significance based on our humanity and not merely on our economic, political or military prowess.

As we view the humanizing process of the world, we see that it is bringing with it the underlying concepts of liberty, fraternity and equality that have seeped into all the cultures of the earth for many decades.

America was the leader and is still the symbol that carries all these characteristics although grown somewhat tarnished over the yeas.

Human globalizations has the meaning that the whole earth as an entity is now occupied by an organized species,  the human race and where it reigns superior.

Our technology puts us in constant and immediate contact with each other, making us alert to everything and anything that happens on the earth and to any of us.

Given this overall view of our planet under the occupancy of human beings we are yet to be able control our economic, political and military prowess and guide our younger urges of liberty, fraternity and equality.

Humanity still needs to deal with tyranny at all levels. We cannot merely view it and analyze it. We must now learn to act against and to prevent it.

The whole world, if not all governments wants to turn to the manner in which we can give answers to these newer concepts and provide the power and organization to overcome our naked economic drives, political urges and military prowess.

Like it or not, other peoples still turn to us for our gentle leadership and not for our military exercise of power. We've been given that worldly responsibility and mainly by the example we set within our own nation.  We are expected to accept this responsibility and must therefore learn how to carefully express and exercise this newly required leadership role in the world of today. 

In spite of serious and deep ironies at this nation's birth, one of America's major problems, following the occupation of an important part of a continent, became that of trying to absorb and of carrying out an idea that gave rise to this nation.

This idea based on notions of freedom and equality developed a culture that later also accepted all of humanity and the equality of each individual in  the world.  However, even today we have been unable to condense in words and in deeds how we are to fulfill that role for ourselves as a nation and how to present it to the rest of the world.

We did not arrive here on this land in the spirit of freedom and equality. And it took many decades for us to understand the reality of the idea. Yet we must learn now how to express this spirit in the coming decades and especially in the immediate days ahead.

It must therefore become only natural for us to open ourselves up to the rising countries of Asia, to the importance of the Arabic nations, to the countries of South America and of Africa and to their cultures and to many of the embryonic nations and peoples of the world.

We need to draw the rest of the world toward us, not because of our importance but because of theirs. This need is a part of the character that we must develop further, if we are to become true to ourselves as a nation and to the rest of the world that looks to us and has become despondent because we have not expressed that character and the best that is within us. We must perform or we are lost. 

How do we do this? We do this first of all, through an exchange of our cultures, our art, our literature and our music. The technology is at hand.  And we can do this also by opening up our people to each others schools and universities and by exchanging goods and inviting travel to our country.   We must learn to respect each other's languages by learning those languages and by speaking to each other in the other's language, not only in the words but by the spirit that each language connotes and imparts.

We must show to the rest of the world as well as to ourselves that as Americans that we believe in the equality of peoples and in equality of all human beings. This reality must become our national, and indeed our international objective. We cannot use our idea of democracy  merely to promote war.  And war is not the means for creating democracy.

We must start by taking one step at a time but then by taking many steps and quite rapidly and continuously as we move on. We should start taking these steps as soon as possible. We must start today and continue tomorrow. The world will accept our genuine spirit but not our arrogance.  Arrogance is spawned by ignorance.

Working toward a more perfect democracy, today we as Americans have good reason to be proud. We have arrived at a stage where as a nation we are ready to elect either a woman, an elder citizen or person of color to the office of president.

This we have done without conscious organization.

This then is part of whom we've become.

Made up of people from most parts of the world, we have succeeded in accepting that we are one humanity working toward treating each individual as an important element of that humanity.

We are still working toward that perfection and much of it will come. Race is still an important component that needs much work. But we are on our way.

We still have to accept that each of us has the right to receive all the education that our minds can absorb and we need to prepare ourselves for a nation made up highly educated people.

We then need to protect the social investment that as a society we have placed in each individual, so that each of us can easily maintain our mental and physical health in order to contribute to the good of the community.

Our final accomplishment then will be how we organize and relate ourselves to all human beings and  the humanity of the rest of the world.  This is all that we are and the role that we play in still becoming America.   

Elizabeth Price, Director of Shorewood's Senior Resource Center has been doing excellent work for the seniors of this community. It seems to me that it would take a staff of several people to do all that she accomplishes.

It's obvious to most people who have experienced the senior programs that further progress here requires more attention by the Village Board in terms of providing staff. I would think that at least 2 more people are needed to continue the good work. The Bill Benjamin fund could help carry the additional staff for the next few years for starters.

Meanwhile, the seniors can perhaps go into some fund raising to support more programs. Hopefully we can work out more coordination with the Schools as well. Let's see if the Village Board can act fairly soon on this.

I've spoken to no one about this until now, but I know that the Board must begin to show some action.

What about it?

Politicians necessarily include economic theory into their political presentations. These are usually amazing ventures into nothingness.

President Bush's economic policies have been as bad as Hoover's, except that Hoover didn't give us a war.

Conservatives seem to favor a “trickle down” theory, money descending from the richest above sifting down to the poorest below. It seems that a lot gets stuck before it gets all the way down.

Is it fair to ask where did the rich get the money in the first place? Or how do they replenish it after all the trickling down?

Today we've learned through the administration's economic stimulus package, whatever that means, that the poor must spurt the money up before it trickles down. But they can't play, they've already lost all their chips.

If you don't understand this theory, you're pretty dumb and that includes me. 

The poor who usually don't have much money are the important factor in this theory. It can't trickle down until it's sponged up. When there's not much to sponge, Bush who believes in leaving the market alone, decides to give the poor some chips to continue to play in order to keep them in the game, a way to prime the pump and keep the market going.  Now I know why the poor shall always be with us.  To prime the pump. 

Where did I hear of “pump priming” economics before? Isn't this what the liberals believe in? Never-the-less, those “capitalists” market analysts we hear explaining our stock market every day are pleased and waiting for the effect that conservative pump priming will have on the economy. Bush believes it's going to work. He's now become one of dem liberal pump primers.

The oil companies seem to have remained pretty good sponges, they're doing their part in this segment of the theory. They're good at sucking up resources from below and anywhere else. But they aren't doing very well in trickling it down. They seem to be keeping the money up there and sharing it with some of the other rich who own the oil in other countries.

Come on now, let's have some trickling.. When I spend my $600, and I think I'll use it for property taxes or income tax, then it will trickle down again. But I want to see more trickling down by the oil companies. I'm afraid that trickle is going to be that black sticky oily stuff, all over me.

He would lie next to my work. As I wrote he heard the clicking. When I paused he offeed his little head for petting. Then he'd walks all over the table. Never placing a paw on the keys.

Now he is no more. And we shall miss the soft purr and gentle nature of this frail little creature.  His honest personality gave so much to us.

He sensed everything around him while asleep. Opening one eye when sensing our presence. Always alert to this amazing world around him. His nose pointing to the direction of unusual sounds.

And now, with tears we think of him, for he shall be missed. We think of this spunky and gentle little animal, bravely facing this indefinite world but not deserving of the pangs of death.

His most pleasant moments were lying in the most sunny spots in the house. Moving from one warm spot to another.  He never liked closed doors and scratched at them. .

He found much pleasure in the garden grass in the sunny days of summer. Never again those joyous sunny days.  He had a taste for all foods especially those from the table. He would find a nice place to sleep and soon there was another and another. He claimed over 20 favorite places.

A unique personality, a gentle nature and honest emotions. He imparted those characteristics to us in our simple relations with him.

Yet no more. Now we mourn him and miss him and his gentle voice, but not wanting to accept his death. We loved him too much and he too much attached. He is no longer, but within us, and we are in sadness and with grief.

He was only a little and gentle creature, but was part of us and we part of him. Now there's only longing and unconsoled sadness. We deeply miss you, and yes we loved you little guy.

Much of Shorewood's infrastructure is in the “100 year-old” category. We've been quite frugal over its maintenance, primarily because it's costly and shows no immediate financial pay-back.

Another reason for limiting our expenditures along these lines is that our politicians have usually promised minimum or no tax increases. We've also relied on the thinking that “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

Shorewood, as many communities, must face up to the fact that the days of “expensive fixing'” have arrived. The condition of our streets, for one thing are beginning to indicate that.

From a political stand point, we're pretty lucky. We've begun to accept that our energy resources are limited and that any venture aimed at reducing these costs or producing energy or energy materials is politically acceptable.

As we turn to an organized approach to upgrading our infrastructure, we need to take both energy saving and and energy producing factors into account. We need to include programs that take advantage of solar and wind opportunities for producing energy in all of our redevelopment projects.

Geo-thermal heat needs to be included in our project designs as well. We need to encourage more sophisticated “pay-back” approaches in our development processes.

Even self-contained sewer systems that digest the waste content and in the process purify the water and create sources of usable gases are possibilities to be explored.

Shorewood's redevelopment should prefer and include new overall approaches to renewing our infrastructure over piecemeal methods. We should find ways to engage in both research and development of 21^st century community infrastructure projects.

Do our officials have the time to begin thinking beyond day-to-day pot-hole repairing and sewer mending-type of projects? Do we have the motivation and the courage to take action along these broader lines?

Senator John McCain, one of the candidates likely to become president of the United States, has indicated that we might remain in Iraq for some time.

And he is probably right. Now that we're in, getting out is going to be quite tricky. The question is, what will be the purpose of our stay? How many troops are going to be required and what is their task going to be?

The British developed their empire for a purpose. Their drive toward conquest was not to spread democracy nor Christian ideals, it was basically for economic gain.

“Great Britain,” now referred to merely as the UK, for a time seemed to get richer and richer, until the drain of maintaining posts throughout the world began to negatively impact their island nation.

Now they have lost their greatness as all empires do. Most naval nations of the past have had to prove their ability to utilize their navies, usually for war of course and often for purposes of conquest.

Our naval abilities are not driven by economic reasons nor for purposes of conquest. But navies merely sail the seas and those in charge want to sail without impediments.

Just like everything else in the world, nothing is perfect and the seas are not without impediments. Those in charge, in possession of ships designed to sink other ships that get in their way are often tempted to use navies for confronting other navies.

Is our purpose as a nation really driven by the interest of spreading democracy throughout the world and especially through force? I don't believe that many Americans believe that.

I once heard a lecture by a Middle East “expert” who said that the turmoil in the Middle East was the “term oil,” a catchy enough phrase to remain with me.

One of the problems with depending on basic products from abroad is that this requires ships and navy. We should be alert to these problems and very carefully study the former policies of the British and other empires who by their very nature became depend on too much from abroad.

Although no nation can become completely self-sufficient, it is important that we do not become too dependent on too many basics from abroad.

We cannot send too many troops to too many places in the world and expect to maintain a peaceful democracy. Of course, we cannot close our eyes to the rest of the world, but what has made us a great nation is that we had plenty of our own resources, but this was in the past.

We cannot depend on empire-building tactics for our survival nor can we justify our actions abroad merely for the purpose of spreading democracy. I don't believe that the writers of our constitution had that in mind.

We have become a sufficiently mature nation to understand that both our domestic and international policies must be very carefully thought out.

I believe that some of our forefathers believed that we should avoid foreign entanglements. We need to revisit their advice and begin to develop some sound policies as to our future.

New York has established a system of school tax exemptions and rebates for retired seniors.

It seems that most states have senior tax-reducing programs of one type or another.

With an aging population, we can expect more interest in the elimination or reduction of school tax burdens on the elderly. This tends to shift the burden to the state and increase that of the local school districts.

It seems to me that, school systems are in the best position to provide many of the required services of our aging population while retaining the present underlying property tax base and the state benefits afforded each enrollee in the system and within our under-used facilities.

I would encourage the Village of Shorewood and Shorewood's Schools to develop extensive programs for serving the seniors in our community while moving toward establishing some additional state support.  Let's assign someone to the task of coming up with a plan, perhaps a senior citizen or two.

We may even see movement toward general property tax rebates for senior residents which would affect the Village's revenues as well.

An intergenerational school program might begin to satisify senior interest.  It would be an initial place to start and give community justification and a strong base for a senior oriented plan.

Unless seniors are given significant community attention, we are likely to see movement toward total school tax exemption for property taxpayers over 65.

If no significant advancement in the development of intergenerational school and social programs is made quite soon, we can expect to see more energies directed toward school tax exemptions for seniors.

Unless, our officials are motivated to act, we won't see much movement in the direction of local senior services such as those that schools can provide. Let's get some immediate response and some sort of action from our local officials.  What will  it take to get things going? 

How can one elected to office as an at-large candidate really determine his/her constituency and if that is not possible then how does that official represent those who elected him/her to office? How does one appointed to an elective office determine his/her constituency?

In Shorewood at the present time both School Board and Village Board members have been candidates elected at-large, that is without representing a particular area or group other than supposedly all members of the community.

How do they do that? How does one represent every one? Does this mean that the official knows the minds of all the citizens and then combines them in determining the common good? Or do the citizens know the mind of the one running for office, and agreeing with that candidate, never bother to provide any opposition? This is not possible.

I don't feel that any member of either Board represents me. And if I were to ask each member, I don't think they could even describe who their constituency is or what it means to represent a particular individual or group of citizens.  School Board members might say that they represent all parents and their children in Shorewood. Impossible. 

Most members of both these Boards in Shorewood came to office without opposition the last time they took office. Many are incumbents, whose offices were extended merely because they had no opposition. Who do they represent? Do they listen to the citizens and if so how do they do this? Is this really what representative government is all about? Can they describe how they function in a supposedly representative government?

I'd like to hear from any of our officials in Shorewood as to how they believe they represent me.

War can be justified in many ways. Yet its main purpose is destruction.

War is the destruction of villages and cities and of those who live in them, "lives taken suddenly when all seems best."  War is also part of an overall attempt to destroy the culture of the vanquished and to superimpose that of the victor's.

War is meant to kill human beings. Its objective to produce dead and the near-dead.  Various sentiments follow:

We are concerned about crime in the streets because it makes us recipients of war-like inflictions of dead  and near dead at home. Just as the term “terrorists” can be applied to those abroad, it can also be applied to the terror in our streets here at home

We used to talk of over-population and its danger to humanity and the danger it presents to the many places where people starve to death. Mass starvation is a the type of war-like condition, death within the homes and communities of many places in the world.

Masses of people have been afflicted with disease that will not only affect them and turn them into partial human beings and even kill them for usually these are inflictions carried on to others who will also suffer these effects.

We are conscious of the fact that the world is running low on water, food and energy. "But not to worry, the predictions of the destruction of humanity are only the figments of those who are over-concerned with these described situations."

“Humanity has survived, and if we do not pay too much attention to world events, things will take care of themselves. Besides we are self-sufficient, self-sufficiency the purpose and the product of individual success. We can not worry about anything more. For what can we do about it?  Let's not be concerned.”

These are thoughts not much discussed in communities like Shorewood, where most of us live comfortably and do not have to see our children go to war or are in war. We are busy creating our own cultures and individual sources of wealth in order to avoid the situations described here. Self-sufficiency is the goal. And super-self-sufficiency, that of billionaires puts those people on the path to godliness.  We don't have time for these other international concerns.   

“Humanity and community are only concepts, illusions and products of impractical minds. For reality is in self-sufficiency, with enough money to help isolate ourselves from these other worldly events, perhaps constancies of life.” This self-sufficiency enables us to consciously avoid slums and keep those slum dwellers out of mind.

Certain days of the week are for going to church and for being reminded of our duties to humanity and for an hour of feeling guilty, followed by freedom from guilt. Then we must enjoy what we have for the remainder of the week and bathe in our good feelings about ourselves and in realizing our good fortune.

“What's the use, life is a one-time thing. Let's live it up and be thankful that we as individuals are not at war or any of those returned as near-dead. Let's rejoice in the pleasures of life and the luxuries we've earned. Let's display our success. We cannot cry crocodile tears over the misfortunes of others.”

Let's support the wars and those at war and let's wear our patriotism on our sleeves and on lapels. We are doing our duty by showing support. After all, our soldiers are dying for our way of life. War has always been that way and shall forever be. “On the other hand, “terrorist” are the ones who give up their lives too, but for the wrong purpose.”.

“That is our wisdom. Why must we yield to those who believe that they have superior morals. Why should we be lectured as to the apparent evils of the world. Let us relish our individual successes. Why should we live outside of our own lives and outside of our own communities, communities like Shorewood?”

*The headline was to a local story of a car accident and brought to mind that wars and other events also cut off lives when all seems best. 

Shorewood has a past and a future. This is connected by a small moving strip that we call the present.

The community's reality is within this narrow strip and in its movement. We may speak of plans and visions of the future, but reality and life remain within this limited strip, on the edge of time.

A former Trustee referred to road maps, plans and visions. His departure is now part of that past as is his interpretation of the future. It is those of us here riding this constricted strip of the present, who determine the future's conversion and Shorewood's reality.

A community's reality is first of all its people. All the elements of community are here within all of us that are active in this small area of the estimated 12 to 14 thousand souls. Some are children and some are the elders of the community. Most of the responsibility for our future rests with those in between.

It is those in between that must develop and maintain the link between and fold in the two edges toward the center and toward themselves, for community is made up of children, parents and grand parents and their surrogates. The community is intergenerational and requires the mix of those of different ages, not a separation.

Basic to everything we do here is to work against age separation and toward developing real and significant linkages between all defined classifications in the interest of a community totality. Our school system rests at the heart of this development. Fortunately we have a school superintendent who understands this and is willing to appropriately accommodate us if not lead us in this need.

We need to make this "small linkage of time" that connects past with future. to connect all the basic similarities that we share here in Shorewood, to create a greater community rather than to emphasize  differences that tend to lose the soul of community.

Only recently have most Americans begun to fall in line with the growing evidence that global warming is a reality.

Here in Shorewood, we have yet to come to grips with the fact that we are also experiencing an age revolution and that families are having fewer children.

The Village of Shorewood as a community must come to grips with the fact that we are going to have more older adults in Shorewood than ever and we have a responsibility to that element of our community.

We must understand that our schools are on a path of declining enrollment because each household is going to have fewer children. We are also going to experience increasing tax responsibilities in the operation of our schools. Yet the cost of confronting this demographic revolution lies with the State and not only with the individual communities.

Both the aging population and declining school enrollment must be handled as one problem requiring solutions never considered before. The older adults as in some states will want Wisconsin to consider that those over 65 should not pay school taxes. If this becomes a policy then the school system will find itself even in greater financial difficulties.

On the other hand, intergeneration programs within the school system would justify the elderly continuing to pay school tax and that each older person enrolled in school programs should bring the same amount of school aid as each child enrolled does. Adult programs should be as extensive.

We need to  reconsider the role of intergenerational program of our public schools here in Shorewood that has already been in place as Dr. Blane McCann, our school superintendent has explained to us. And we should see to it that it that it receives strong support from the older community and our elected officials and state representatives.

More and more older adult citizens are choosing to stay in place, not only in their communities but in their own homes. They shall be requiring certain services from the community that our Village should be prepared to provide.

What makes a city and what is its purpose?

The  atom of the city is the individual human being in the same way that he/she was the atom of the village and of the small town.

The family was a small atomic cluster. And the organic nature of the extended family and family groupings produced the village.

To understand the building blocks of the city it becomes necessary to understand the nature of the human being and family and what makes up the basic unit of common living?  The natural village.

The city, the expanded version of the small town was the result of needs beyond the village and came about during  the various forms of early trade and cultural groupings.  It contrasts the village as it was governed to  the superimposed power of this forming broader economy.

Economy is evidenced more in the city than in smaller communities and introduces another underlying force, the force of growth.

Growing cities and their growing economies tend to dissolve the personalized character of community and absorb it into the broader mass.

Even before city planner types began to appear and as cities formed, the rulers of these larger territories did the planning to suit themselves.

The nature of this activity was mostly a form of physical development directed by those with power.

Power later moved from central authority to the power of money and land and later to the captains of trade. It then again became necessary to involve government to manage the more public elements such as streets, canals, bridges and port facilities.

The organic and humanistic nature of the evolution of communities was diminished as cities became the dominant human settlements and centers of trade.

In making a long story short, the conscious planning and designing of cities and even of our little suburbs like Shorewood, in spite of the globalization of cities today, requires an understanding of the early elements and clusterization of these elements as they pertain to individual, family and community interaction.

One of the most publicly visible physical problems is the dehumanization effect of urban streets. We speak to this here as this is one of our best known urban problems.

We must therefore start by viewing our street as part of the human requirement of connective living rather than the sewer-like, waste carrying and car movement characteristics of the streets of today.

Even in the suburb, streetscaping, as it is presently practiced is not going to do it.

It's a cosmetic feature being pasted over the decaying social structure of streets.

The incorporation of new solar energy techniques as canopy structures, for example might bring a physical enhancement as to weather protection and the security requirement of the streets. But this requires understanding the human and community qualities of the street.

Understanding these qualities and how to apply these techniques can help make the street a more attractive place for socialization. We seem to sense this with our superficial approach to appearance.  So then the fundamental  socialization of our streets becomes the most important place to start and this now becomes our most important goal.

Village Board members give a great deal of time in the work of managing our community's affairs and I often wonder way they do it. Few citizens appreciate the time that it takes away from their families and businesses. I'm sure that many other citizens would also want to show their appreciation for their efforts.

I've been a citizen who has watched the Village in process for some time and marvel at all the work that gets done. Now that we have a vacancy after an annouced resignation, I hope that it is left open until the next election so we can get some people to run for the office in opposition to each other and voted for by the people.. There have been too many who have been unopposed for local political positions.  An appointment at this time would re-enforce the trend of the unelected.

The Village should encourage people to run for office and find ways for getting people to meaningfully participate in government and get them interested in elected office.

Meanwhile, with only five members and a presiding officer, the Board can act with more informality, inviting the citizens who are attending meetings to participate in discussions when recognized, in the same manner as the members are recognized, getting citizens used to the process of decision-making and during the time the decisions are being made, as long as their comments are not disruptive and do not interfere with orderly proceedings.

Let's take advantage of this opportunity to bring citizens into the governing process.  I'm sure we can be quite innovative about this.  Let's give it a good try.  In this way we may even get some of these citizens sufficiently interested to run for office. 

Last night, Friday at 8:30 pm, I found myself on Oakland Avenue, making a rather emergency trip to Pick-n-Save.  Of course one soon becomes aware of the construction obstacles.

It seemed rather dark as I think of it. I suppose there weren't any lights on the east side of the street nor did I see any people on the sidewalks. The neon lights made it rather spooky.

I had to access Oakland by driving south to Capitol, then west to Oakland and north to Pick-n-Save. 'Plenty of parking spaces. Then going back, I drove north on Oakland until I could access an east-bound street. So now I was in Whitefish Bay driving east toward home and then another short distance south.

I didn't see one person on the sidewalks in this “walkable community.” Of course, there were several cars moving, so I was not the only one driving. At that moment, we could perhaps describe this part of Oakland Avenue, if not dead, rather dead in its social function. Should I have expected more?

Yes, I did. But this was perhaps because I didn't take into consideration the construction obstacles and the darkness of the street and that hour of the evening. But I know that the evolution of communities and their business districts take time as does the kind of reconstruction that is being undertaken here in Shorewood.  But the impression it creates is significant and tends to linger.

And to this point, we saw some shots of Hillary, photographic shots, on Fox News the other night and someone said, “doesn't she look tired?” This reminded me of an expression that I also heard recently, that many white men did not want to watch her growing older during the next term or two.

It did have an impression and I suppose it will always come to mind now, even though the most important member of family believes that Hillary is quite photogenic when not shown on Fox. (One might say that McCain often looks tired, too, but we don't have to watch him grow old).
 

Will people passing through our business district during this cosmetic reconstruction forget the impression that this inconvenience creates in our minds and later on, we'll not be so impressed with the cosmetic surgery, with the older impressions coming through?

It seems that living in a place during remodeling is part of living, so whenever it occurs, it needs to be organized to at least suit the dwellers as much as suit those engaged in the process of construction. However, today's contractual processes usually favor the contractor.  So this is usually difficult. But many things are difficult.

Incidentally, many business districts seem spooky in the evening during this time of year.