Water Fights in December?

Someone needs to tell our city council that this is the wrong time of year to be engaging in water fights.

OK, so council members are not exactly resorting to squirt guns and water bombs, but the behavior of our council is almost that childish. Perhaps they have been paying too much attention to the state legislature...bad influence and all that. Whatever the reasoning behind council members wasting time and city funds, it is time to stop.

If you haven't been following the follies, first council members requested a special council session to discuss the water company, and then when the Mayor calls the session, they deny ever asking for a meeting. All the children holding office pout and refuse to attend. Grow up, folks. This issue is not going away. Too many citizens of Fayette County know there are good reasons to buy the water company. Too many others have good reasons to want our water to remain a private company. One way or the other this must be resolved and that means putting aside the pouts and tantrums and working for a real solution.

Maybe you won't please everyone, but sometimes the best public policy is that which makes neither side really happy. One side winning and the other losing won’t protect our water supply, that requires both sides to do what is best for Lexington.

Great Expectations...

Our lives are rushing by in a blur of work days and hurried evenings. We are doing our best under less than ideal circumstances. We want to get our lives organized but there is always one more thing that must be done or a new emergency that pops up. Once that is dealt with it will be a perfect moment for us. We will have great expectations of what to do when that moment arrives. If we can only find the time, or the money, or the perfect place.... We have such dreams. If only...

Lexington has just finished looking over the report of the city's blue ribbon panel. What did we learn? Nothing really. Unless, of course we noticed that the city has a lot of good people doing the best they can under difficult circumstances. There is no real plan for running the city efficiently. Our information technology is vastly outdated. City workers are making due with what they have, and trying to upgrade as quickly as possible. If only we can live up to the great expectations of the panel and develop that strategic plan...

Did the panel fail to notice that our city is a lot of people just like us? Their report seems to glaze over the the people working to make Lexington function while focusing on the technology and planning. While the panels and planners are striving for perfection the city goes on with its life. People living and working here are the city.

Today as I sit here thinking about my home I am reminded that perfection isn't as important as the work we each do to strive toward the ideal. The ideal Lexington may never exist anywhere but in my mind. She has been a work in progress since the first colts raced through her fields. For those who envisioned a new Athens on America's western frontier and forbearers who struggled to hold the dream together through wars and depressions, the ideal American city was always here. Lexington took root because a lot of good people worked hard under difficult circumstances. I worry that we may lose sight of the real strength of our city if we spend our time listening to the blue ribbon panels of the world instead of taking a little time to talk to the real people holding it all together one day at a time. Those people make the ideal Lexington a real city today and I have great expectations for her future.