Many residents have said to us: “You’re too late.” “It’s a done deal.” “You’d better stop trying.” The reality is we know what will happen to our neighborhoods if we do nothing. The traffic will be worse, the schools will be even more crowded, when the next fire comes evacuating will be even more tenuous, and so on. We may not know what will happen with this project or with the upcoming decision but we are in the arena trying our best to do right by our community.
President Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech (Citizenship in the Republic) at the Sorbonne in France in April of 1910, that talks to this very point:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”
We are “daring greatly” and we hope you choose to support our efforts. We need all the help we can get.