St. Pete Beach City Commission Meeting

28 November 2017 | Donald B. Ardell Comments | 336 words

Good evening, my name’s Don Ardell and I live nearby, and I rise to offer a secular invocation that speaks to all the citizens of St. Pete Beach.

No need to bow your heads or to close your eyes to consider a few reflections upon ideals and values that permanently unite as opposed to issues that momentarily separate us in St. Pete Beach and elsewhere in America. We share values that override, by many times, the hot button issues of the day that divide us. Yes, the people of this town, like Americans in the great cities and rural communities across the land, have varying passions about our leaders and political parties. We have very different perspectives, for example, for and against choices surrounding topics such as; guns control, healthcare, taxation, family planning, immigration, global warming, and religious privileges and even a few not so great issues like whether football players should be allowed to take a knee during the playing of our national anthem. But the ideals, the values we share, can and surely will override these temporal perturbations.

I refer to ideals and values not found in Holy books but in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I refer to values concerning human rights, safeguards in favor of the family, provisions for education of the young, care for the health and wellbeing of all our people, support for critical thought for science and for reason, and the pursuit of happiness.

These secular treasures give us our moral guides regardless of which religions, if any, we embrace. America’s greatest order of the 19th century Robert Green Ingersoll suggested that intellectual liberty is our surest moral guide. Such intelligence leads to the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, and of self-denial when necessary for the common good. Such liberty is as holy as our constitution, as sacred as our flag. It is the blossom and fruit of justice, the perfume of mercy. Intellectual liberty in summary is the seed and soil, the air and light, the dew and rain of American progress, love, and joy.

Thank you so much for your work and for allowing this invocation.

Winter Park (FL) City Council Meeting

23 October 2017 | David Williamson | 353 words (2:06)

It’s my honor today to join you to offer opening words—often referred to as an invocation or prayer.

But the words I’ve chosen are intended to invoke the shared values that every one of us arrived with today and it is my sincere hope everyone feels included.

Through the millennia we’ve learned the hard lesson that the best way to govern the people is for the people to govern themselves.

Today, in this tradition, we travel from our homes and businesses across the City to participate. Citizens, staff, and those elected; we all converge on this chamber to join as one community, indivisible; united in the shared purpose of service—service to one another—service to those we know—and those we may never meet.

We arrived as individuals; each with unique ideas and experiences, but ALL of us with a need to fulfill.

Citizens request assistance and collaboration with the City. They offer their concerns and we are grateful for their courage to speak and, even more so, for their trust in this process.

The needs they bring will be met by others here—those who have a different need—a need to serve.

This may be the City staff who provide invaluable advice and expertise. We truly appreciate their continued work on our behalf.

Their years of service combined provide many decades of knowledge and experience. Their wise counsel is appreciated more than can be expressed in a few words.

Elected officials listen, deliberate, debate, and decide the path forward for the people of Winter Park and its cherished visitors. We can never offer our thanks enough, for that thankless task.

While we work together here, and this evening after we leave this chamber, let us carry with us this same spirit of service and goodwill.

Today, tomorrow and every day that follows. For together we can accomplish far more than we can on our own.

This is why—and this is how we decided to assemble, to serve, and to govern, ourselves.

It is why our nation’s first and best motto was “Out of many—one. E Pluribus Unum.”

Longwood (FL) City Council Meeting

18 September 2017 | Paul Truman | 339 words

Thank you Mayor, Commissioners, Staff, and community members for the opportunity to offer opening words for tonight’s meeting.

This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, moments of tension, of frustration, and ideological division. This is also a room where we come to work together and where we have much more in common than we realize or remember during our discourse.

Let us be mindful that this room is filled with our diverse human family with common values and needs. Let us cherish and celebrate our shared capacity for reason and compassion. Our similarities and our ability to recognize the value and worth of our entire community is what moves us forward.

During Hurricane Irma, Florida was tested in how compassionate and wonderful we can be. Through and through, we saw the best that our communities offer. Whether by sanctuary from the worst of the storm to letting folks recharge their cell phones and computers on our generators and in our restaurants, we should all be in awe of the greatness of Longwood’s citizens.

The burden of the storm was not equally carried, so it is important that we take the time in meetings like this to thank the hardworking police officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, and every line man Florida currently houses. From the bottom of our hearts, thanks to each and every one of you.

I offer additional thanks to all the city workers and elected officials for doing their best to help Longwood make it through the Hurricane. From executive decisions to Facebook updates, your efforts helped so many make it through the hurricane better prepared and better informed. The civic lesson on how lift stations work was a lesson learned by most.

The City of Longwood’s Mission is: “To foster citizen trust by practicing open, accountable, and responsive government; providing quality core services; promoting long-term prosperity.” Thank you for upholding these virtues during these days as we weathered the storm together and as you deliberate this evening.

Thank you for your time.

Orlando, FL Commission Meeting

8 August 2017 | David Williamson | 337 words (2:02)

Good afternoon Mr. Mayor, Commissioners, and Staff.

I was thrilled to learn you proclaimed yesterday Equality Florida Day in celebration of their two decades of social justice work on behalf of LGBTQ Floridians. Congratulations to the volunteers, staff and my fellow supporters of Equality Florida, and to everyone in the city who has made concerted efforts toward full equality. For it is ONLY when we are treated equally by our government, by public charities, and by public accommodations, that we can truly achieve a greatness that can be measured by all.

It’s my honor today to join the city with its continuing efforts at inclusion by offering a secular invocation.

Through the millennia we’ve learned the hard lesson that the best way to govern the people is for the people to govern themselves. Today, in this tradition, we travel from our homes and businesses across the City to participate. Citizens, staff, and those elected; we all converge on this chamber to join as a community, united in the shared purpose of service to one another.

We each arrived today as individuals; all with unique ideas and experiences, but ALL with needs of many types. Citizens request assistance and collaboration with the City. They offer their concerns and we are grateful for their courage to speak and for their trust in this process. And those needs will be met by others—those who have the need to serve.

Staff provides invaluable expertise and we truly appreciate their continued work on our behalf.

Elected officials listen, deliberate, debate, and decide the path forward for the people of Orlando and our cherished visitors. We can never offer our thanks enough for that thankless task.

When we leave this chamber later today, let us carry with us this same spirit of service and goodwill, today, tomorrow and every day that follows. For together we can accomplish far more than we can on our own.

This is why and this is how we decided to assemble, to serve, and to govern, ourselves.

Oskaloosa City Council Meeting (Iowa)

6 July 2017 | Justin Scott | 537 words

Good evening, on behalf of the Eastern Iowa Atheists and the rising number of atheists and other non-religious citizens across Oskaloosa and Iowa, thank you for this opportunity. It is an honor to be delivering the first ever inclusive invocation at an Oskaloosa City Council Meeting, honoring both the Constitution of Iowa and the United States. Tonight’s invocation is dedicated to Iana Looney and to anybody else across Eastern Iowa or Iowa that have ever stood up for equality in their communities but have been told to look the other way or move out.

First, for everybody to remain as comfortable as you’d like, stay standing or remain seated, whatever you feel comfortable with. I’d like to build on the idea of Counselor Ver Steeg by encouraging all of you to face in any direction you choose, bow your heads or keep your chin up, and feel free to either keep your eyes open or shut, whichever you wish as you will not offend me however you choose to enjoy my invocation. Regardless of what you choose I appreciate your presence in the chamber tonight.

Let us begin, tonight as many of you have figured out, I will not be invoking a higher power. Instead, I will be pointing out some powers all of us have thanks to the wonder of human evolution. To do the most good for the most number of people right here in beautiful Oskaloosa, I encourage everyone to harness these powers in every discussion and vote tonight.

First, the power to empathize with those that are different than you, that have taken a different path than you, that have experienced and continue to experience struggles different than yours. The human power to embrace diversity in your community, seeing it not as a threat, but as an opportunity to learn and grow as neighbors. The human power to strive for inclusion in your city government, it is here to work for all citizens but only if you demand more from it. The human power to demand justice within your city as we all are, in one way or another, all minorities.

When it comes to making the right decisions for the city of Oskaloosa, decisions that ensure that the rights and freedoms of all citizens are upheld and protected, this chamber must demand more than appeals to the supernatural but rather rely only on taking an evidence-based approach to all decisions.

Lastly, this chamber should not operate as merely a grouping of individuals looking out for themselves, but rather, relying on one another. Celebrating all that makes us different and yet, at the same time, so much the same. The human power of attempting to do the most good for the most number of people is the best power that any of us have, always using our reason and critical thinking skills to do so.

So in closing, it is my pleasure to leave with you the lasting words of Robert Ingersoll, one of the greatest orators our country has ever produced quote, “Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is make others so.”

Thank you.

Volusia County (FL) Council Meeting

6 July 2017 | Brandon Haught | 321 words (2:25)

Thank you Mr. Chairman, council members and citizens,

The recent Independence Day celebrations had me reflecting back on my military service a few decades ago. One aspect of serving in the Marine Corps has always stuck with me: you never leave a fellow Marine behind. When one Marine is in trouble, other Marines are there to help and support. Now, that doesn't mean everyone was the best of friends, but Marines take care of their own regardless.

I served in Oklahoma City in 1995. That was the year of the Federal Building bombing, killing 168 innocent people, including two of my fellow Marines. But it wasn't just the military that came through in a time of great need, it was everyone. The community, the state, the country, the world came together. Never before then had I ever personally witnessed such an outpouring of support and coming together.

Later, I worked here in Volusia County for the Sheriff's Office. I didn't have the honor of serving as a deputy — I was a civilian, but I was comforted by the fact that in the Sheriff s Office everyone took care of everyone else. It could have been helping a deputy in financial distress. It could have been covering a fellow deputy's roof after a hurricane while that deputy was on duty. It could be the response of every law enforcement officer from miles around when there are calls of "shots fired" over the radio. But the bottom line was that they were in it together.

That's the message I want to leave with you today. Everyone has differing personalities and goals and beliefs but we can still all come together to serve the common good. Putting self aside to help others needs to be the overriding objective in any discussion or decision here. It is my sincere hope that we all can achieve and maintain that noble goal.

Thank you for your time.

City of DeLand (FL) Council Meeting

5 July 2017 | Athena Jeanne Hale | 371 words (3:37)

Thank you, Mayor Apgar, Commission Members, Staff, and members of the community for inviting me to give a humanist invocation this evening.

As we gather here to discuss our city and its challenges and needs, let us remember why we chose to take up this mantle of public service: to create as much good as possible for the individual citizens of DeLand and the general public.

We must view diversity and inclusion as our greatest assets in the significant work we do. In order to serve all our constituents we must keep the universal values of human dignity and rights at our core.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscious and should act toward one another in a Spirit of Brotherhood.”

When we think of these concepts, we usually do so in broad international terms. However, one of the primary architects of the Declaration and the person most responsible for its drafting and adoption, our former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt would disagree. She argued that local governments are at the front lines of human rights work. In remarks before the United Nations in 1958, she asked:

(quote) “Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood [they] live in; the school or college [they] attend; the factory, farm or office where [they] work. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” (end quote)

As we embark on our work tonight and every day, in whatever capacity we find ourselves, let us all remember that we hold universal human rights and dignity in our own hands, and those we serve are counting on us to protect and defend these values for all of us. Thank you

Seminole County (FL) Commission Meeting

27 June 2017 | David Starkweather

Transcript not available.

Casselberry (FL) City Council Meeting

22 May 2017 | Joseph Richardson | 229 words (1:20)

Mayor and Commissioners,

Thank you for this opportunity to provide a secular invocation for today's meeting.

We have all come here tonight with our various troubles and hopes, desires and frustrations. But right now, I invite you to slow down for just a moment; take a breath and remember your fellow commissioners, city staff and especially the citizens of Casselberry whom you represent.

Remember that they have the same desires as you, the same goals as you. Consider that your fellow commissioners and the citizens you will hear speak tonight are here because they, like you, want Casselberry to be an even better place to live, to work and to play than it already is.

All of us are here to work to make Casselberry better. But it is you who must make the decisions. In that light I’ll offer a quote from Kareem Abdul Jabar who I’m sure you all know was a pro basketball player. He said “Five guys on the court working together can achieve more than five talented individuals who come and go as individuals.”

And that’s exactly what I encourage you to do tonight. Work together as a team with the other commissioners and with the citizens of Casselberry to achieve more than what any of you can do as individuals. Work together to get the job done and to get it done well.

Eustis (FL) City Council Meeting

4 May 2017 | Joseph Richardson | 324 words (2:10)

Mayor and Commissioners,

I'm honored and grateful to be here to address you today on behalf of the Central Florida Freethought Community and freethinkers here in Eustis.

This day, in many quarters, Reason is being celebrated. Today is the National Day of Reason which seeks, among other things to "promote the development and application of reason", a worthy goal that is radically inclusive.

It is through reason that, more than 2200 years ago, with nothing more than shadows and a little geometry, Eratosthenes was able to show that the Earth was indeed a sphere and calculate its circumference to within 1%. It is through reason that 300 years ago we began the Enlightenment and struggled our way out of the darkness and superstition of the Middle Ages. Through reason, Einstein made predictions about the cosmos that we are still confirming 100 years later. Through reason, we know that we are intimately connected, not only to every other human, but also to every living thing.

Despite the advances of reason, we are all wrong about something. It is a continuous, life-long effort to be "less wrong" and to use new information and reason to achieve that goal. You have the opportunity to do that again tonight. You will receive new information and make decisions about that information. I urge you to exercise empathy to understand how your constituents feel, to use compassion to consider how your decisions will affect them, and to apply reason in the evaluation all of these things.

I'm particularly glad to see that you're proclaiming Public Service Recognition Week tonight. Public service is often empathy, compassion and reason in action.

So on this, the National Day of Reason, I encourage you to be conscious of your own empathy, compassion and especially reason, be humble in your self-assessment, be judicious in the exercise of your sacred duty as commissioners, and strive always to be "less wrong" through the uninhibited use of reason.

Bermerton City Council Meeting

18 April 2017 | Jennifer Chamberlin | 718 words

You guys are welcome to sit and also to leave your hats on. Hi, you guys are welcome to sit too. Thank you.

My name is Jennifer Chamberlin and I am a member of the Humanist Society. The principles of Humanism include helping others, concern for our environment, meeting in community with others of like mind, making connections, and probably the hardest of all, growing by connection with others who hold diverse beliefs and building a legacy that makes our world a better place.

Thank you, Bremerton City Council, for the opportunity to open your session today and this secular invocation I understand is the first of its kind here, so thank you for the opportunity again.

I’d like to begin by first thanking the Duwamish people whose land we convene on today and who took care of the land long before settlers or colonists came.

Rather than bow your heads I invite you to look towards our flag for a few moments. This year we’ve seen our nation’s flag in distress, underfoot, burning in streets, worn like a cape, and dragged through the mud, flying upside down against the backdrop of protest. Yet here in this hallowed hall, that flag sits sacred and unfettered. We can look at that flag and know that this space is one that exists to create harmony by the principles of democracy, despite the complexity of serving our diverse city.

The motto of our great nation is E Pluribus Unum, out of many one. We come together here and offer our stories as your constituents, and you’re charged with coming together in a consensus that benefits our city and a consensus that cares for our most fragile and most marginalized individuals, while at the same time representing the interests of the majority.

In a time when the tenets of science are under attack, we are also learning through neuroscience that one’s proclivity to be conservative or liberal might just lie in our inherited brain structures. These discoveries make it even more important to recognize that our perspectives are driven by nature and must be nurtured and honored. That we must process each perspective and story to find the new story that reflects our shared values as humans.

E Pluribus Unum is your charge and it’s your privilege and I appreciate it and thank you. I invite you to use your charge and your privilege in a way that honors not only the voices of those you hear from your constituents, but also the voices you know are silenced by fear.

This Saturday, April 22, is Earth Day. To the council and to the public I invite you to participate in an activity that honors our Earth, we do after all live in the most beautiful state in the nation so please enjoy it. Some folks like to do art projects with recycled materials, some folks like to take part in park cleanup efforts. You might just want to find a nice park in Kitsap County, we have so many to choose from, and take an appreciative and meditative walk. Personally, I’ll be with my fellowship at the March for Science in Seattle on Earth Day.

I‘d like to close by reading a favorite poem of mine. I was inspired to choose this one after seeing folks come together in support of our immigrant neighbors. While this poem, which rests at the base of our Statue of Liberty is describing a bay that on the other side of the country, you might easily be able to replace that imagery with that of our beautiful Puget Sound and rugged Salish Sea. The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightening, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Thank you.

Arizona House of Representatives (Arizona)

April 18 2017 | Athena Salman | 171 words

April 18. 2017

Take a moment to look around you at the people gathered here today. We come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but the passion that ignites us, the fire that burns within us, is similar. We all seek to form a more perfect union, creating change from an abiding passion to improve the lives of humans of the city. There’s wonder in that, more importantly though, there is unity. In a nation often eager to be polarized in its views, allow us in this moment to recognize what we have in common; a deep-seated need to help create a more just and positive world. As we speak today, remember that commonality, remember the humanity that resides within each and every person here, and each and every person in this state and in all people in the nation and the world as a whole. In the words of former president of Illinois Wesleyan University Minor Myers Jr. quote, “go forth and do well, but even more go forth and do good.”

Seminole County (FL) Council Meeting

11 April 2017 | David Williamson | 330 words

As we gather this morning, let’s reflect on the things we’ve brought with us to do the important work of the County.

Wisdom is often called for at this time, yet all the knowledge we need is right here in this chamber. Our devoted county commissioners, proud citizens, local business owners and entrepreneurs, and, of course, the dedicated, hard-working county staff. We all bring with us vast knowledge to share and we are each vital to the process of self-governance.

Compassion is essential for effective public service and it’s cultivated through a lifetime of learning about the needs of everyone in the community, especially those who, at first, seem unlike ourselves. When these needs are neglected or ignored we have failed in our duty to serve everyone equally.

Integrity and honesty are earned through life lessons we take from family, friends, strangers, and our personal experiences of these principles in everyone around us whom we admire.

Finally, let’s be continually grateful to one another and ensure those who work on our behalf know how much we appreciate them.

Let’s be especially thankful at this meeting for the service of firefighters and everyone else who will work hard to protect us this dry season. Those women and men of the Seminole County Fire Department, the Florida Forest Service, our local municipal fire departments as well as everyone in public safety who pitch in when we need them; day or night.

As “we the people,” gather this morning with the common goal of improving the lives of stakeholders in Seminole County, including those who will be affected by our decisions for generations to come, let’s take solace in the fact that, on our own we can do this, because of what we’ve learned, how much we care, and because about a half a million county residents are counting on us to get this right. No pressure.

Have a productive meeting and on behalf of all your constituents, thank you for your service!

Iowa State House of Representatives

5 April 2017 | Justin Scott | 335 words

First, thanks to Mrs. Upmeyer and to Representative Brown Powers, thank you to my wife and children in the back.

Let me begin, instead of closing your eyes and bowing your heads today please keep your heads up and your eyes open to be fully alert in this moment. As you can convene here in the People’s House, let me implore this body to invoke the Holy Trinity of Science. Made up of reason, observation, and experience this Trinity has allowed humanity to explore the deep reaches of space, develop lifesaving medicines, and vastly improve the human experience.

This body should be able to tackle the many difficult issues facing the great people of the state of Iowa without allowing confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, or intellectual dishonesty to blindly guide positions and votes.

The Trinity I invoke today isn't rooted in any kind of doctrine or dogma. In its pursuit of truth, it doesn't care what our feelings are or what our deeply held beliefs are on a particular issue. Truth can sometimes be uncomfortable, but it plays a large part in the ongoing evolution of our species.

There's only one catch with this kind of Trinity, though. It only works if you're willing to change your opinions on issues if it delivers an outcome that doesn't align with your deeply held beliefs. This is especially worth remembering as all of you are entrusted to uphold and maintain the dignity and bodily autonomy of all Iowans, regardless of their worldview, sexual orientation, gender identity, or even political ideology.

Refusing to accept what the evidence says has real world implications for all Iowans. Incorporating this Trinity today, tomorrow, and every day, you do the work of the people, which will allow you to do the most good for the most Iowans.

In closing, let this Trinity guide you and protect you. May this Trinity inspire you and be honest to you. May this Trinity lift up the truth upon you and give you peace.

Thank you.

Waterloo City Council Meeting (Iowa)

6 March 2017 | Melissa Tate | 358 words

Thank you, Mayor Hart and council members, for the opportunity to deliver tonight’s Humanist invocation.

I am especially honored as I just became a first-time home owner in Waterloo. I love Waterloo for its contrasts and beautiful blends of the rural and urban, success and struggle, the black and the white, and everything in-between. Most prayers and invocations in this room begin with a request to bow your heads and close your eyes. I would like to ask, instead, that you take the opportunity to look around the room at all of us here in this moment, dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our city. For this is an invocation of our collective ability to use rational thought, empirical evidence, and compassion to make the best possible decisions for our community.

We call on each other to reflect on our behavior as individuals and as a community. We call on ourselves to be compassionate with each other as we struggle together to embrace change. Let us have compassion for each other as we come to terms with what it means to collectively hold the belief that we live in a meritocracy and therefore we understand that our successes came about through hard work, defined by our obstacles and struggles. But we are never asked to see how we are at least equally defined by our privileges. Sometimes we may be blinded by our privileges and not realize the harm we do with our speech and actions. Occasionally, we may even retaliate when we fear losing something we feel should be ours. We, all of us, have inherited a system that privileges whiteness but finds itself facing changing demographics and a broader culture that is increasingly multi-cultural.

First, let us have compassion for ourselves and each other as many of us struggle to come to terms with these changing times. Second, let us come together through rational thought and scientific inquiry to find answers on how to grapple with the issues of our day and to make decisions that are in the best interest of the people of our great city.

Thank you.

Casselberry (FL) City Council Meeting

13 February 2017 | David Williamson | 289 words

Good afternoon Mayor, Commissioners, and, of course, City Staff. On behalf of ALL Casselberry citizens, thank you.

In honor of YOUR service, and of the many city employees and volunteers, most of whom are not here, I want to read a poem by Marge Piercy. It is titled To Be of Use

The people I love the best jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves,
an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo,
with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done,
again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge in the task,
who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands,
crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person
for work that is real.

And on behalf of the Central Florida Freethought Community, thank you for your service and we wish you all the best in your proceedings this afternoon

Maine House of Representatives

7 February 2017 | Tom Waddell

Transcript not available.

Winter Park (FL) City Council Meeting

9 January 2017 | Joseph Richardson | 248 words (1:32)

Thank you for inviting the Central Florida Freethought Community to provide the invocation for today's meeting. We're glad to be here and we appreciate being included.

To most people, government meetings can be uninspired affairs. The governmental machinations necessary to reach a community's goals can be tedious. But the intent undergirding these procedings and your participation in them is a noble one that transcends all deliberative actions.

It is in the work you do and in these gatherings that we play out the values developed by organized and civilized socitey and enshrined in our constitution. It is here that citizens have the opportunity to speak directly to you about issues that affect their lives. And it is here that you, as representatives of the government, have the honor and responsibility to listen and adjudicate.

Even though the specific actions of this body on this day may seem prosaic, your efforts advance the goals enumerated in the Preamble to the Constitution: establishing justice, promoting liberty, contributing to the general welfare.

With this context in mind, I encourage and exhort each of you to approach today's deliberations with due reverence and to apply hard data, empathy and compassion to the decisions you face today. Hard data being the evidence that some ideas work and some don't. Empathy and compassion being the recognition that your decisions affect real people in real ways.

For all you do for the citizens of Winter Park and for this opportunity to speak, we thank you.