Remember New Year's Eve 2010: Death of the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps

Chris Hedges in his book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt on p. 270 quotes Hannah Arendt as writing, "The greatest evildoers are those who don't remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and without remembrance, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stablizing ourselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur - the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world."

While Arrendt was speaking of things like the holocaust, and Hedges is speaking of the horrendous suffering caused by corporate capitalism out of control, I am reminded of the New Year's Coup right here in Brockport on 12/31/10 when the Town of Sweden council consisting of Jack Milner, Mike Meyers, Patricia Connors, Rob Carges, and Rebecca Donahue reneged on its promise to the people of Sweden to study the matter for two months and abruptly voted, under pressure from Paul Kimball in Clarkson, to change  the Town ambulance contract from the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps to Monroe Ambulance thereby killing the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps which they acknowledged provided excellent services at no cost to Town Taxpayers. And so the questions of why the change, why the deceit have never been answered. And after two years they are hoping it will be forgotten, but with the 41% increase in taxes for fire protection, we have not forgotten and continue to connect the dots of history to understand our own oppression.

Public hearings, held just days before this emergency action, had unanimously supported the continuation of the contract with the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps and yet the Town of Sweden council acted in direct contradiction to that democratic decision and mandate, and after promising to study the matter for a couple of months in front of the TV cameras, three days later held an emergency meeting and canceled the contract with the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps and gave it to Monroe Ambulance.

Shortly there after Milner and Meyers left office perhaps because they couldn't face their constituents knowing that they had acted in bad faith.  Hedges further writes "...Arendt points out, the only morally reliable people are not those who say 'this is wrong' or 'this should not be done', but those who say 'I can't.'"

Moral damage was done in Sweden on 12/31/10. Democracy was corrupted by autocratic power, and life saving services where taken from a group of committed community volunteers and given to corporate, profit making enterprise undermining the communitarian fabric of our Brockport community. Connors and Donahue continue in office and witness the rise of the Fire District, another layer of government, which has increased fire protection rates 41% and which tax is now an additional tax for there has been no reduction in Town or Village taxes even though the Towns and Villages no longer are responsible for funding fire protection services.

When asked why Clarkson and Sweden voted to give the ambulance contracts to Monroe Ambulance and take them away from the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps, a member of the Clarkson/Sweden Fire Protection District Study Committee told me "to cut the head off the beast" meaning to deprive the Village of Brockport of whatever profit could be made from insurance fees for ambulance services so it would be forced to turn over the Brockport Fire Department assetts to the new Fire District.

The long term interests of Brockporters were ill served by political decisions to destroy the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps and to form another layer of government with the autocratic power to tax.

As Arendt says "The greatest evildoers are those who don't remember because they have never given thought to the matter,"

Some of us in Brockport remember and we see the negative consequences of bad decisions made with immoral behavior of deceit and betraying their ethical oath to their constituents. The New Year's eve coup will go down in history as immoral behavior by our local politicians committed against the people they swore to represent. The nefarious deeds of Milner, Meyers, Connors, Carges, and Donahue are not forgotten. The people of Brockport should remember how their government acted against their interests to serve the special interests of select groups. Who benefited from these unethical activities? How have they benefited? How do we as people deal with the fact that the people's trust was betrayed and that those with dirty hands still function among us keeping their misdeeds in the shadows while they watch their constituents and neighbors pay the price for their misguided decisions.