Even Happy Families Fight

 

By Rick Boettger

 

Recently a local editorial bemoaned the loss of our “One Human Family’s” glitter. It said we no longer get along with each other, or welcome everyone with open arms.

 

 

I disagree strongly, and point by point, with that editorial. Yes, many in our community want to run off the homeless. But that is not unusual. What is remarkable is that so many others want to feed and shelter them. We are surely the second most welcoming city in America, after my old haunt, Berkeley, in treating them as funky members of our community.

 

 

Yes, we have bicycle scolds, but we also have the most bicyclists on the streets since I’ve been here, and we are becoming ever more bicycle-friendly. Drivers on Olivia always approach me slowly from behind, and wait till I can pull over before they pass.

 

 

On the Boulevard, traffic often politely stops to let someone make a left turn into a business. I drive every day and cannot remember a tailgating or refusal to yield a right of way. Our drivers are the most polite of anywhere I’ve lived.

 

 

Yes, some don’t recycle, but since we’ve added the big blue bins, our rate has tripled, and is getting ever more respectable. Calling code enforcement is not necessarily “war” on our neighbors. It is as likely to be someone making sure our city keeps the beautiful charms that drew us here, and not allowing someone to selfishly break our rules.

 

 

While I favor an enforced sound ordinance, the loud bands are not making a “raucous noise.” No, they are playing often fine island rock, and at a volume which apparently people like — after all, the reason they play it loudly is because people go into the louder ones, not flee them.

 

 

No one I know who is anti-cruise ship or outraged at the excessively long Boulevard construction ever coveted the cruisers’ sales taxes, or complained about the need for anything but repaving the road’s surface. People wanting a park at Truman Waterfront do not “tear down the work of the city toward achieving that goal,” but rather complain about the sad and ineffectual lack of such work.

 

 

But the editorial’s concluding “most glaring example” of our loss of our family vibe is the “rough and tumble antics” of our city commission. Yes, there are frequent, intense disagreements, and one day one frustrated commissioner challenged the mayor to “take it outside,” presumably not for a friendly beer together.

 

 

But even the happiest of families sometimes squabbles, with mom and dad hollering at each other, brothers bloodying each other’s noses, and teenagers storming off to their rooms. The right amount of outright conflict is eminently healthier than the repressed cold will of a Puritan New Englander. It’s better to let off steam frequently than to let it build until it explodes.

 

 

Any governing body that demands acquiescent consensus, with no-discussion unanimous votes, is not serving its constituents wisely or honestly. Especially in Florida, with our sunshine laws, where commissioners are banned from discussing public issues outside of the relatively brief commission meetings.

 

 

The issues facing our city are too complex to be handled in short sound bites. We really do need to hear opposing voices on loud music, the Truman waterfront, Boulevard reconstruction, ambulance service, staff competence, tow trucks, taxis, solid waste and just about everything that makes it to the regular agenda. When one side of an issue gets unlimited voice, and another gets cut off, frustrations will turn into anger.

 

 

I taught this in my organizational behavior classes. Optimal conflict beats groupthink any day. Boards should fight. Families should argue. I say our One Human Family is alive and well, achieving a fine balance of loving accommodation and honest, fearless facing each other’s differences.

 

 

In fact, I go in the other direction. I see my fair city more suffused with love and public service now than ever before. Our Community Foundation has never been richer. Arts groups proliferate and thrive. Despite cutbacks in government funding, our main service agencies are consolidating and going forward. We blocked cruise ship expansion. The Boulevard’s end is in sight. Property values have recovered. New hotels rise at the Y. To me, this is the “list” that “goes on” and on. Not that editorial’s litany of moans.

 

 

I say, love is in the air. Say it, and feel it, with me, my One Human Family siblings. And thanks for the bumper stickers and wristbands, JT.

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