Moving Forward

    Last Wednesday I was working on my first column of the New Year, full of the kind of hope and optimism that comes from being rested, when I got a call from Lindsay’s mayor, Ramona Padilla.  “Have you seen the paper?” she asked.  Her voice urgent, she read the headline of the story of the year.  “City searches for lost leadership,” she said, noting a photo of former city manager/police chief Rich Wilkinson sat right below it.

    

     To have the year’s news of Lindsay characterized in this way, after 12 months of struggle to make progress in teaching the albatross to fly – the albatross around Lindsay’s neck left by years of leadership still lost in Townsend’s pink cloud – was almost devastating to me, if not to her.  If you want to know what the insiders are thinking (and feeling,) just read one of Sheyenne Romero’s articles.  Her carefully reconstructed versions of Lindsay’s history match theirs to a T. 

     I could spend my 500 words deconstructing that version, or I can tell you in a couple of sentences why that “loss” is really good news.  Wilkinson was a bully, a different kind of bully than Townsend was – less savvy, more abrasive – but a bully nonetheless.  The keepers of the citadel put him there like a gun to replace a diplomat.  It cost us a lot, both financially and socially, to have him there and it cost us a lot to let him move on, but his departure was an improvement in community quality.  It brought hope for the future. 

    
     The “conflict” between the city council and staff that Ms. Romero reports with such dismay was actually a long-overdue and hard-won change:  the council actually began doing their job overseeing the staff on behalf of the public.  I see it as a tremendously healthy sign of democracy returning to this small town. “Returning” might be a hopelessly romantic word to use, since small towns are known for their propensity to serve only the handful of small fish whose self-esteem is magnified by the size of the pond.  But this romantic believes that at some tiny moment in Lindsay’s history, democracy did have a day.  And more important, this advocate for the four freedoms believes we can have it again. 

    It will take people working together to figure out how we make the democratic process accessible to people who’ve never seen it in action (English speakers included.)  It will take people who want that, which means replacing some of this city’s “leadership” that still remains with people who can see the beauty of inclusiveness.  It will take people who give more than lip service to the need for governmental transparency.  And it will take hope. 

     I take hope from Lindsay’s real story of 2015.  It was the story of the year, largely unreported by this or any other paper.  And I believe we can move forward to a more democratic society, with a more transparent and responsible government and an engaged citizenry becoming members of this place for the first time in their lives.  It is not too much to hope for.  Happy 2016. 

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes.  You can send her your signs of forward movement c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.