Village Council: 4/21 Mtg. Agenda; Antioch: Art + Article in NY Sunday Times, and more!

Dear people!
1) My normal office hour will resume on Mon 4/21 (12-1 pm in the Emporium)
2) Village Council Mtg: Monday evening 4/21 (7 pm at the Bryan Center)--

Agenda Items of Interest:

• 2 Resolutions: regarding

1. The village manager's employment agreement for this year
2. Cooperative paving program with the Greene County Engineer. Will create new overlays on a few streets--including some "chip seal" work and some regular overlays in "certain streets and parking areas within the Village" (I'm not sure which streets they are at this time). Budgeted from levy monies; expected cost: $352,362.

• Special Reports: 

1. Annual Reports (re: 2007) from Env. Comm and Village Mediation
2. Dana Patterson, of the Coretta Scott King Center (see this article from this week's YSNews about the tragic and, to me, unconscionable loss to our community), will speak to Council about our goal of being "a welcoming community of opportunity to people of diverse races, cultures, and incomes."
3. Home, Inc. will also provide an update.
4. Electric Systems Task Force, Phase I report
5. Student Noise at Antioch
6. Sidewalk Repairs Process Update
7. Green Space Fund --I think this is a clarification, relating to the rental incomes that are to be earmarked for this fund.
8. Calendar time lines for completing the major work of the Council.

3) There's been interesting and complicated news regarding Antioch this week--too much for me to possibly discuss, and more than I've been able to properly digest. 

There's also an article about Antioch in tomorrow's New York Times, in the Education supplement of the Sunday paper, "The College that Would Not Go Gently" by Patricia Cohen (it's already up online).  It's focused on those who chose to stay, or to come, for this past year and their "fierce love" for the College.  Initial reaction: fairly positive.

Additionally, I've been asked to urge everyone to attend the various Antioch College campus art shows, which I believe will be up through graduation next week, although the openings for all of them were yesterday afternoon:

1. A Community Art Show: "Antioch is My Home" 2nd floor of the Art Building
2. An end-of-semester Visual art and photography exhibition: in Noyes Gallery, Art Building
3. Senior projects in photography: Tania Hutchinson, "Elephants" in 130 McGregor; plus Elizabeth Dobson "A One-Woman Circus Act" & Ceci Cheaney, "I Carry you with me," both on the 3rd floor of South Hall
4. An End of Semester Exhibit called "The Raw and The Cooked" in the Herndon Gallery

4) Quick update on Environmental Commission: Green Pricing.  It's been a great Earth Day weekend, with much activity. 

But, a letter in the paper promulgates a mistaken view of "Green Pricing" program: We need 10% of the village to sign up, as individuals for this program. Your doing so will NOT force the other 90% of the village to participate. 10% is the benchmark set by Village staff in order to make this program manageable for them and to pay for itself. 

If we don't get 10% of the village, then NO ONE will get to participate. And, please be aware that if you sign up and then have a change of heart, you can easily opt-out again by contacting Village offices. I urge you to participate in "Green Pricing"--it's a good program, in support of a cause that I believe we all MUST "opt" into: reducing our carbon footprint!

5) April is National Poetry Month. Read some poems! (You can start with the one below!)

Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees 

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body 

love what it loves. 

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 

Meanwhile the world goes on. 

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees, 

the mountains and the rivers. 

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 

are heading home again. 

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination, 

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things.



© Mary Oliver. Online Source