July 6, 2024
Hi Everyone,
I hope you all are doing well and enjoying this 4th of July weekend with your family and friends. Celebrating our nation’s founding is the perfect time to reflect upon our good fortune. Fireworks are fun, beautiful, and inspiring, please remember that they can be dangerous and terrifying to pets and wildlife.
Your turnout at our commission meetings has been amazing, Let’s keep it up! Thank you all for supporting your community. Participation is essential to the health and well-being of our city and you are having an impact.
Small Town
What is a small town? Is it defined by a particular number of residents or is it a feeling you get from your connection with neighbors or a family down the street? Left to its own design, a family that moves to Oak Hill for work, or because it seemed like a great place to retire, will find fellowship through work, church, school, or even a local bar.
In days gone by, fellowship could be found in a variety of ways. Here in Oak Hill churches and the school were the center of community activity. It was the square dances, fish fry’s, seafood festival, teen club, outdoor movies, and faith that brought people together. Many formed relationships that lasted for generations. The result was a stronger community.
When people are willing to volunteer and become active in their community, not only do they contribute to it, but they grow and move beyond the confines of the for-profit, technological bubble that society has created. This is not fellowship. Having our wants and needs served up for us by a soulless machine as it calculates our satisfaction threshold through mechanisms and algorithms conjured up in a sterile atmosphere halfway around the world is not fellowship.
We learn how to live with others through the reality of feeling pain, rejection, forgiveness, happiness, and love, not from a steady stream of empty content and superficial satisfaction. The point is that coming together for whatever reason is how real relationships are formed. Without the connection that a community provides we cannot feel empathy or enjoy the immense satisfaction that comes from helping others. Connecting with our community helps us grow, it nurtures tolerance and understanding. What comes from this is a real, tangible asset that benefits the individual as well as the community.
What goes through your mind when you see a video of a person or persons in trouble and facing real peril? Do you grieve for the unfortunate or do you shout at your phone because you cannot believe that the person taking the video is choosing a cheap chance to gather content for the unlikely goal of finally getting their 15 minutes of fame? The opportunity to help a fellow human in need is missed because the satisfaction that is had by the lure of a comment being left on website by a stranger who he will never meet outweighs the need of the person in trouble.
The more disturbing the video, the more advertising revenue it generates for a faceless corporation in Silicon Valley. The life that is lost or the suffering that is recorded is merely collateral damage, a means to an end. Perhaps this callous act might bring an instance of satisfaction to the videographer while the unattached cheer him on but how will it go when he shows his accomplishment to his parents? What will it be like to be in the room as this individual takes personal inventory or as he stands before God? We need fellowship. It teaches us what is important and helps us make choices that have meaning and build character. When we make choices that benefit others it provides us with long-lasting happiness that is not owned by an artificial intelligence driven machine.
Our community becomes strong and meaningful through fellowship, not through one person’s penchant for uncontrolled growth at all costs. That only serves to further separate us. Piling a bunch of strangers into a small space only exacerbates the isolation we see and feel around us every day. Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing a family waiting for a table at a restaurant all staring at their phones, exchanging an opportunity to bond, with a family member or a stranger, for instant gratification. This missed opportunity could have perhaps turned the stranger into a friend. Could that happen? We will never know unless we look up from that screen and face the world around us. Taking the easy way rarely results in a life experience that provides spiritual sustenance.
Could our institutions be failing us by focusing on growth and not providing us with the mechanism we need to strengthen our community and build lifelong relationships? Or… is it the personal responsibility of individuals to seek fellowship however they may find it? The current mayor has said that the city cannot allow citizens to volunteer and work for a common goal unless they have a one-million-dollar insurance policy that specifically “holds the city harmless” from any actions that may occur because of the volunteer activity. The winner becomes the insurance company and the city government. The loser becomes the citizen volunteer and the opportunity to meet your neighbor and to form a bond; That which makes our community stronger becomes an opportunity lost to fear and profit. Let’s embrace this wonderful small-town atmosphere that we have right in the palm of our hand and not squander it. Let’s put down our phones and meet the neighbors.
Candidates for Mayor and City Commissioners
Election season is in full swing. Get ready for the onslaught of the political signs to come. The Mayor’s race includes the Challenger, Ricky Taylor, and the 12-year incumbent Douglas Gibson. Two Commission seats are up for grabs, one unchallenged. Carrie Warning ran unopposed and has secured seat #2. Mark Drollinger and Steve McGee are running for seat #4. It’s shaping up to be a good race. As I get more information on the candidates, I will pass it along to you all. Get out and vote this November. It’s the chance you’ve all been waiting for.
Oak Hill Community Trust
Oak Hill Community Trust has begun their Membership Drive and are looking for interested area residents who would like to become a member of this non-profit community organization. This is a great place to share ideas about creating “community,” and offers the opportunity to serve on committees for events and family activities. There is no fee to join, but there is a place for you to get involved and meet new people. The OHCT annual projects include the Community Garden, the Museum and the BST charter school. Events include: summer family activities in the parks, open-gym nights at BST, back to school teachers breakfast, fall festival, veterans breakfast, Spring Festival and Easter Egg Hunt, light up the Park and Christmas music with Santa Clause. You are invited to attend the monthly meetings, held the first Tuesday of every month at 6:00 pm at Dewees Park building.
To find out more about the Oak Hill Community Trust contact Dana Greatrex (386) 405-8261 and click here to visit their website.
—————————————–
Our City Commissioner’s meeting is Monday, July 8, 2024 at city hall. The time is 6:00 PM. Click here for the agenda pack.
Please come and let your voice be heard. Your presence and participation are how we hold our commission to account.
As always, it’s my pleasure to serve you, I appreciate your support. Please let me know what I can do to help. I’m here to represent you…
Thanks again,appreciate your support. Please let me know what I can do to help. I’m here to represent you…
Thanks again,
Joe Catigano
Oak Hill City Commissioner
Seat 3
