Dryden Is Home

This is a town where...we hold meetings in public!

The Ithaca Journal used their Daily Opinion column from their editor to comment on government meetings - Dryden government meetings to be exact. Some highlights (read the entire editorial):

-About a week ago, we saw a rare occurrence in Tompkins County. A town board — in this case Dryden — broke from its routine and held a regularly-scheduled meeting away from Dryden Town Hall.

-Last Wednesday, Dryden met at the Varna Volunteer Fire Company. It was the first of at least a few meetings the board will have in different parts of the town (the largest town in Tompkins County). In April, David Makar proposed that the town board should meet at one of the town's four community centers or four fire stations every other month.

-Hopefully, the Dryden Town Board is successful in its pursuit, and other boards — school boards included — follow. It may increase interest in government affairs and allow more community members access to their elected officials.

One of the Varna Volunteer Fire Company members that attended told me later that he had to step outside during part of the meeting - he was number 57 in a room that had the legal fire capacity of 56. He was keeping track and stepped out as others came in.

I was really happy to see a good turn out from the local media, not for me personally, but so that people that couldn't attend the meeting could find out about it from other sources. The Ithaca Journal, Tompkins Weekly, The Dryden Courier and WHCU all had reporters listening and staying late to ask questions after the meeting. There were public hearings, department reports, committee reports and resolution review and passing. I felt good having public participation and it reminded me of the annual town meetings that are held each spring in Berlin, Massachusetts where I grew up. These meetings become informative and educational, but also social and community building. Perhaps the more we understand about actions, the better we can respond to those actions.

I hope that we can continue these public meetings in community centers and fire departments in 2008.

Town Board Meeting

Hi Mom,

Today is an exciting day in Dryden. This morning over breakfast I read an article on the cover of the local section of the Ithaca Journal with the title, "Dryden Town Board to offer insight to local government". The article goes on to mention tonight's July town board meeting at the Varna Volunteer Fire Station. Some details of the article include:

-David Makar, a member of the Dryden Town Board and a resident of Bethel Grove, was concerned his neighbors and other town members did not understand the interworkings of their town government.

-Makar proposed a resolution to the board in April to meet at one of the town's four community centers or four fire stations every other month. Varna, Etna, Freeville and the Village of Dryden have fire stations, while Bethel Grove, Varna, Etna and Ellis Hollow have community centers.

Varna was chosen for the July meeting specifically because of the tensions that exist between the western parts of the town and the rest of the town. Residents of the western hamlets of Varna, Etna, Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove, among other areas, frequently feel isolated from the town government, Makar said.

-Many residents in that part of town have addresses in the Ithaca ZIP code, Makar said. Their children go to school in the Ithaca City School District, and, by car, they're 14 miles from the Village of Dryden.

If you or dad want to read the full article, you can visit their website and see the article here. The meeting is at 7pm tonight with a tour at 6:30 of the fire station. There has been light rain this afternoon and hopefully that will cool off the building - they don't have air conditioning - so I'll be bringing some water to the meeting. Funny though I guess - - bringing water to a fire station!

In other news, Arjan is having a good time in Turkey - she's been emailing me almost every day. The garden is exploding with peppers, the kitty cat still isn't sleeping through the night (waking me at about 4:30am), and  my trip to see you and dad is still on.

Have a good rest of the week, see you soon!

Dave

Checking In

Blog readers from Freeville to Florida to Folsom (Hi Tamie, Hi Mom, Hi Roger) have checked in with me for more updates than the blog is providing. I'm going to try to blog each morning before getting into the work day. If there's something going on that you'd like to hear more about, let me know.

I'll start with a picture from March 23rd - 10 days ago. The snow was melting like crazy on Thursday and I made a pair of snowmen. On Friday I took another yard picture that goes along with the set of house pictures I've been taking for the last two and a half years.

Finally, on a gardening note, Matt Cooper from the Dryden Courier interviewed me on March 23rd for an article that appeared in the March 28th issue about Gardening and Blogging. I submitted the following picture that ran with the article.

Simon blogged about it here:

In the Home Garden section, Cooper talks with Dryden Town Board Member David Makar about his gardening and his blogging about his garden. He got started cheaply, paid attention to the plants but didn't devote his life to them, and got a sizable return for his efforts. He also notes fellow Board Member Mary Ann Sumner's blogging and my own efforts.

I tried to steer Matt in the direction of my neighbor Melissa's blog, as well as Mary Ann's blog - they both blog about gardening. Melissa: http://littlewoolgatherings.blogspot.com/, Mary Ann: http://fivewells.blogspot.com/

The article did encourage me to start planning for the 2007 season and over breakfast on Monday Arjan and I discussed fruits, vegetables and flowers for the yard and garden for this summer. I spent about an hour Saturday cultivating wild blackberries (can you cultivate something that is wild?) and cleaning up part of the yard that had a lot of uncontrolled brambles.

Radio Interview

I was just interviewed by Yuan Ye of Voices of America about not having a television at my house. He was also very interested to ask about my tv smashing habits and how it came about.

Yuan Ye is the broadcaster of "America Today" which "explores American society, social customs, trends and thinking." The show includes a youth and campus call-in and last reported was played Monday to Friday 02:00 to 03:00 and again from 11:00 to 12:00 UTC. Once it has aired it will be loaded to this website: http://www.voanews.com/chinese/ . Of course it will all be in Chinese, but you'll be able to hear my voice faded under the dubbed Mandarin.

I was told from a friend of Yuan Ye's who I am friends with about this opportunity.

I'm not really a kill your tv type of person. I'm not leading an anti-tv protest and I'm not against either the medium or the hardware. I watch some of my favorite shows either online (Lost on ABC.com, Daily Show on ComedyCentral.com) or DVD (Lost, 24). I'm just against how much of my time used to get eaten by the television. I could be volunteering, running for office, reading books, writing, creating art, traveling or going to meetings instead of watching tv. I also don't watch commercials, unless they are really good: http://www.ad-awards.com/

Here's the smash info from the past:

MakarFest 9 TV Smash page: http://544online.com/dmakar/Events/2002/November/MakarFest/

Think of it as part college re-union, part entertainment, part comedy, part showmanship, and part suburban rage. Nov. 24th, 2002 MPEG video of the smash (mostly audio as there was very little light): http://544online.com/dmakar/Events/2002/November/MakarFest/TV-Smash.mpg

Television smash pictures from November 2005's MakarFest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/tags/televisionsmash/

Four years later I still don't have a tv.