Successful Dryden Town Board candidate Linda Lavine wrote a thank-you letter in today's Ithaca Journal:
Every workday, as I drive 12 miles through the back roads of Dryden, I give thanks for the beauty of this land. I pass homes, villages, Fall Creek, lovely old barns, fields of horses, cows and corn. I have driven this path for 40 years now, and never tire of it.
As Thanksgiving approaches, I wish to publicly express my gratitude to the people of Dryden, for caring enough to preserve the integrity and natural beauty of this land by their vote.
Kathy Zahler of Freeville points out a few things Dryden (schools) still need to work out with the state:
The property tax cap is working. It is working to maintain the divide between rich and poor and to ensure that children in poor upstate districts have no chance at all to improve their lot in life....
Dryden educates 12 times as many students as Bridgehampton with just three times the money. But Dryden has had budgets fail with a 50-50 vote. Do you really think that Dryden will dare to ask voters to override the tax cap? Remember, rollover budgets put everyone over the cap. To stay within the cap means to lose services, not just to maintain what we have.
Murray Cohen of Dryden asks hard questions about Christianity and politics:
We are probably not as familiar with this remark by Jesus: "But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation" (Luke 6:24). And then there is this poetically powerful admonition: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven ... for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:19).
Am I missing something, or is there an inherent contradiction between Jesus as the embodiment of God and the Republican vision of wealth and the worldly life of acquisition as the optimum good?
Beyond the Viewpoints page, which feels all Dryden all the time today, there's also mention of Freeville resident Joy Hines participating in Occupy Ithaca's camp.
Posted by simon at November 23, 2011 12:22 PM in Ithaca Journal , boosterism , politics (local) , politics (national) , politics (state) , public finance