Newsletter Volume 3 • Number 24
Democratic presidents offer wise words after another hard-fought political campaign
Veterans Day has long held special meaning beyond commemorating the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month in 1918, when an armistice ended the First World War. It honors all military veterans. Moreover, because it falls just after Election Day, it has also served as a time to recall what our veterans fought for.
On Veterans Day 2016, just after another presidential election, President Barack Obama did that. “When the election is over, as we search for ways to come together—to reconnect with one another and with the principles that are more enduring than transitory politics—some of our best examples are the men and women we salute on Veterans Day,” he noted in an address at Arlington Cemetery.
“It’s the example of the single-most diverse institution in our country—soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and coast-guardsmen who represent every corner of our country, every shade of humanity, immigrant and native-born, Christian, Muslim, Jew, and nonbeliever alike, all forged into common service.”
President Obama quoted an essay from a Missouri middle-school student. “ ‘When I think of a veteran, I think of men or women who will be the first to help an elderly lady across the street. I also think of someone who will defend everyone, regardless of their race, age, gender, hair color, or other discriminations.’ ” (Obama chuckled at the hair color concern.)
In Greenwich on Monday, we saluted our veterans. Peter Le Beau, Commander of the Greenwich American Legion told a crowd of nearly 160, “Please treat our veterans as they richly deserve to be treated with sincere gratitude and heartfelt respect, and whenever you meet a veteran simply say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ Believe me it means a lot to us.”
In Arlington, at the same time, President Biden offered a challenge to the rest of us. “The world is depending on you to keep honoring the women and the men and the families who have borne the battle, to keep protecting everything they’ve fought for, to keep striving to heal our nation’s wounds, to keep perfecting our union.”
President Obama offered a similar message in his 2016 speech, no doubt referring to concerns about what that election portended. “Whenever the world makes you cynical, whenever you doubt that courage and goodness and selflessness is possible, stop and look to a veteran. They don’t always go around telling stories of their heroism, so it’s up to us to ask and to listen, to tell those stories for them, and to live in our own lives the values for which they were prepared to give theirs.”
Republicans appear set to cut back an already-tight public schools budget
Schools superintendent Toni Jones has presented the Board of Education (BOE) with a proposed 2025-26 operating budget that requests a smaller increase than neighboring communities. Amounting to a 5.4% increase (roughly $10 million), this is below initial estimates from Darien’s superintendent, who forecasts a +5.5-6.5% increase, and Westport, which expects its budget to grow 6% or more.
However, Republicans on the Board of Estimate and Taxation have already used their supermajority to approve budget guidelines calling for only a 3% increase in the BOE operating budget, while suggesting that they want to see additional staff cuts.
Anyone interested in the school budget is encouraged to attend the BOE budget meeting on Thursday, December 5th at Central Middle School. That meeting will be open to public comment.
| Volume 3, Number 24 • November 14, 2024 |
| Paid for by the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. |
| Greenwich Democratic Town Committee P.O. Box 126 Greenwich, CT 06836 |