Board of Aldermen 11-24-2020 Page 41
need to come to some kind of decision as to what we are going to do, if we are going to do anything and if
so, what is that going to be?
President Wilshire
OK.
Mayor Donchess
I’ll talk to Bobbie tomorrow.
President Wilshire
Ok, thank you Mayor. OK, Beth Scaer.
Beth Scaer | just wanted to quickly say thank you to my Alderman, Alderman Caron for her last few votes
against the PAC funding. | really appreciate it for everyone in the Ward and the City. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Ok. Anyone else wishing to give public comment this evening? Seeing none, Remarks by Members of the
Board? Alderman Lopez.
REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN
Alderman Lopez
| just want to say that given the situation that we are facing with COVID-19 seems a little bit awkward to say
or wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, but | do. Thanksgiving is centered on the experience of the
Mayflower Pilgrims and something that sort of gets glossed over a lot is the 102 Mayflower Pilgrims that
spent their winter on the Mayflower trapped in like ice, not able to set up their settlement. Of that, only 51 of
them survived. That was the ultimate lockdown and there was a lot of disease and a lot of discomfort. And
they came out of that grateful, they came out of that and they built their settlement and they made their
colony out of it.
| think whatever comes ahead, we have something to be grateful for and that’s each other. We have our
family, we have our friends, we have our strengths and it is very easy to lose sight of that. So if you are
feeling isolated this Holiday Season, then reach out. We have mental health supports, we have charitable
organizations that are providing everything from jackets to blankets, to food, to gift bags. We have to work
through this; we have to admit that there are challenges in front of us. And as was said this morning, we
have to admit to ourselves that we are falling short in some areas. When we take shortcuts, other people
take shortcuts and collectively we have all been exhausted by this long ordeal. But it is not time to drop our
guard and it’s not time to start saying, well the vaccine will come in a couple of weeks or defer to that
illusion because it’s not real yet. And right now the decisions that you are making about how you spend
your Thanksgiving and how you spend it with your family this Thanksgiving, will have a direct impact on
how you celebrate your Christmas with your family.
If there’s an outbreak of if there’s contagion, you don’t want to be spending, you don’t want to have a
relative spending Christmas in the hospital or worse. This is something we do need to be very careful with
but we have every reason to be grateful, because we have come this far this year. We've had huge groups
of volunteers creating masks, sewing them, we’ve had MakelT Labs creating face shields. Now MakelT
Labs is reprogramming computers that were donated so that kids can do on-line learning more easily.
There has just been a tremendous amount of positive effort in trying to overcome this.
