A Request From Dave Lamora

Just about everybody by now who has any interest in the Cape Vincent wind issue  knows of the public  hearing events surrounding the new zoning law.   Cape Citizen Dave Lamora  requested the uninterrupted  time he needed to make what he thought were some critical points about Article X and our zoning and comp plan and felt three minutes was not sufficient.  This turned into an incident where the police were called once again.  Since yesterday I have discussed this event with Dave.    I will have more to say, not about my personal discussions with Dave, but about the public hearing events, and the issues around it.   The attacks (and lies) that came out on this issue against Lamora and myself on both CV blogs and by many of their commenters were absolutely predictable. 

Dave as a friend has made a request that I am going to honor.  He has made it clear that I obviously have a right to say what I feel about the event and present my the facts as I see them, and encourages me to exercise that right,  but he has asked that I make it very clear that any comments or interpretations of the public hearing events or any of the surrounding issues are my opinion, and my opinion only and not his through me.  So that will be the case. What you see in coming days is now and has always been MY opinion whether Dave agrees or not.  If Dave has comments he is always welcome to state them here if he chooses, and I may agree what he says or I may not. This should not be interpreted as a personal division between Dave and me because it is not.  This is a request from a friend, and that is all it is.

 Dave does not tell me what to put on my blog or how to say it, and in fact at times does not agree with my approach or what I say.  Sometimes he does.  In turn, despite everybody’s fantasy,  I have not tried to tell him what to say on my blog or in any other forum including the recent public hearing. Some of you are not going to believe that and that is not Dave’s and my problem…that is your own defective defensive thinking that you require to simplify your own little universe so you can keep your thinking tightly limited within the boundaries somebody else has defined for you.

Now all this being said, I noticed that interwoven among the negative comments were a few positive ones about Dave’s actions and ideas.  There were some who felt Dave’s comments were very relevant and a well thought out critical analysis of what we are facing, why, and what we should resolve it.

To those people I would say thank you, and it is far far past time to stand  up an be heard.  One man was so committed to the defense of our community that he was willing to be arrested on our behalf if that is what it took to make his point. The extremely sad part is that many will see this as ”unreasonable”, when in fact it is not.  It is what democracy actually demands and requires  of all of us at times as absolutely reasonable. Unfortunately we have shrunken so far back from what democracy actually demands of us and was gifted to us, and been beaten down so hard, by what is defined as “normal” that we now see the very thing that was designed to sustain democracy as unreasonable.    I would also highly encourage you to start using your name as well.  With where we are now, anonymous doesn’t cut it any longer.

If you agree with Dave and his comments and commitment, as I do, then we are at the point that if you as a concerned citizen don’t stand up and be heard you may never have that chance again to truly do what is needed to save this community.  We are fast drawing very short on time, and times like these define people as to what they really are inside, just as we saw at the public hearing among our board and citizens.  Who had true leadership and who didn’t.  Under a simple reasonable democratic request most of our town board came unhinged and could not handle the very democracy that put them in office when it made them a bit uncomfortable.  They could not make a simple and reasonable decision to diffuse a simple issue and instead became so threatened they had to surrender their responsibilities to the police.

And if you can’t be anything but anonymous then all you are really doing is just taking up valuable space.  Go find some non threatening hobby, but don’t continue to  take up space in this arena where you only fantasize you are actually on the playing field and in the game.  I certainly don’t want anybody to do any independent thinking where you might hurt yourself without some blog’s or political party’s  protection.  It’s times like these that define  who walks the walk, and who only talks the talk.

  I will have a post soon on at least one town leader who badly failed that test under pressure , and the sad glaring facts as to why.