I hope you have had a joyous holiday season and are ready for the new year! Perhaps you have made a few resolutions and now in the stark light of January you are wondering just why you made them. It can be pretty hard to live up to our best intentions made in the spirit of good times such as the holiday season, when a little bit later it strikes us that it's pretty dreary and cold so what's the difference? Make your resolutions with the voice of the angels of your better nature in your ear and the reality may disclose a devil or two.

I have recently started a job with the Clerk of Courts and am spending my spare time researching the lives and family of two brothers who were early country musicians. The work and the hobby I find enjoyable and it allows me the opportunity to use some of the skills I've picked up in life. It also works in the other direction. I can apply it to the people and their issues in the neighborhood.

Information transmitted from one person to the next tends to lose value and impact, but sometimes gains like a snowball. The level of personal involvement focuses, though often with a blinder effect, so that other facets go unobserved though they may be in plain view to others less emotionally involved. Stress acts to make people forget to do or ask certain things that are important. Upon removal of the stress, recovery begins. With some distance of time transposition of events occur because of confusion and/or we "know" how things turned out so we put them in the "order" we want them to be or what "makes sense".

I raise these points because often I and the neighborhood association are called upon to decipher complex, obscure, and volatile issues that have often simmered long, flavored by neglect, seasoned with intense emotion, and must be solved now!

I and the council like to take some time to gather and discuss the facts and try to reach the best decision available to us. We are not perfect. We are your neighbors performing local volunteer work. We do not claim to be infallible. We can make mistakes, but more often than not, we arrive at good decisions which better the previous existing situation and lead to a better tomorrow.

Till next time.

Richard Linster