SEASON OF CHANGE 

"Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better."

Sydney J. Harris

Of course you know the oft-quoted biblical passage from Ecclesiastes, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted . . ."

This is the our time to move forward and make the Village of New Haven the place we all know it can be. Let’s work together to build this community up as the envy of all other communities that surround us. We need a plan of action to have this community reach its full potential. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of charity, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. Can New Haven reach its full potential when we have families going hungry in our community, when we neglect our duty to provide for our seniors and young people, and we don’t promote the positive happening in our community but blog about the “news”? We all share in that which ails of our community, and we will all share in the remedy that heals our community.

In this village, we rise or fall as one community, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same divisiveness and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our community for so long.

That's the true genius of our Community: that WE can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

It is how this village has overcome the greatest differences and the longest odds — because there is no obstacle that can stand in the way of so many voices calling for change.

There is no doubt that our road will be long. That our climb will be steep. But never forget that the true character of our community is revealed not during times of comfort and ease, but by the right we do when the moment is hard. I ask you to help reveal that character once more, and together, we can carry forward as one community, and one people, the legacy of our forefathers that we celebrate this year.