(8th in a series of posts on Bethlehem Moments)
Taking a break from the big project of organizing the public hearing on 2 W. Market last Tuesday.
Remember that in these 8 posts, Gadfly is kind of drafting a proposal for Council to add a Bethlehem Moment to the opening of each Council meeting. Thinking out loud about all the components of such an addition.
So we have had 2 so far, one on the Hill-to-Hill bridge fund raising as a precursor to the joining of the boroughs that gave us the single town of Bethlehem, the other on the death of 14 Bethlehem “boy” Army recruits in what was then the greatest air tragedy in Lehigh Valley history.
Too random? The scholar in Gadfly would start at the beginning way back in Europe and work up to the present over the next 50yrs of his life. But that wouldn’t work, would it? But is just bouncing around too random? Gadfly is reading and thinking about Bethlehem history in an unorganized way, and, as long as he is doing the Moments in this trial period, he will just wait to be struck by something interesting.
Gadfly’s Hill-to-Hill Moment came as a result of the billboard controversy (Whatever happened to that? Did Gadfly hear we did get sued?). The plane crash came out of studying Triangle Park and the presentation at Council on plans for the Rose Garden.
So Gadfly’s finding the Moments so far from what seems to be going on now.
Does that feel alright? Or should there be more structure?
So that’s one thing Gadfly is thinking about, Moment-wise.
A second is that he is not sure the Moments will really be meaningful unless they are ultimately incorporated at the very top of the meeting right after the prayer and the pledge.
To do them as part of public comment feels not right at all.
There they lose their isolated and high-lighted significance. There they get mixed in with business. When the meeting starts after the pledge, people go into work mode. The introduction is over, and now we’re focusing on the “meat” of the meeting.
If there is any future for the Bethlehem Moment idea, it has to be as part of the introduction to the meeting.
A third thing Gadfly is wondering about is the title. Would “Bethlehem Remembers” be better?
So that’s what Gadfly has been thinking about in regard to the “Bethlehem Moments.”
Shoot me some ideas, or do one in this trial period. What say?
Ok, back to 2 W.
