Strange Question Asked to Me By a Bay Ridge Politician
Yesterday a Bay Ridge politician asked me: What community service do you do? I haven’t been asked that question since I was in 7th grade making confirmation.
I believe when you do something for someone else you are really helping yourself (good feelings and all that). Even if someone didn’t believe that, we have a responsibility to help other people who need our help. The Bible outlines specifically what you need to do Matthew 25:41-45.
The person who asked me the question seemed to see community service as a job or a chore because it is part of his job.
I told the politician what groups I worked with. I thought he wanted to know what interested me (all involve people and animals). The politician responded, ” but nothing on development.”
I have no idea what that meant. Maybe some politicians only deal with politicians all day and talk about development, but I don’t.
His advice to me was this: “join the historical district council, we were one of the 6 communities for more historical preservation.” It’s strange that someone interested in representing people would tell a person to join a group, without knowing if a that person was interested in that. For me. some buildings in NYC need to be saved and some don’t. And new buildings are sometimes needed for schools.
The politician figured since I am not a member of the historical district council, I don’t know anything about it.
Oh but I do.
We dealt with NYC on this level. We hope to never deal with anyone about the historical value of a building again. WHY? Because these offices are very disorganized, slow and corrupt. My family’s building in Downtown Brooklyn was researched for two years for historical significance. TWO YEARS. The city had plans for the land where the building sat so the city was determined not find the historical significance of the building. AKRF hired experts to study the building and then the EDC dismissed their findings. Why? Because of developers and political sellouts.
I’m sure this politician meant well but asking about what other people do as “community service” is as personal to each person and you can’t just push your agenda onto people, even if it’s what you do with your “political friends.” Before you tell people to do community service, make sure you have done your own service to the people and not just doing work in the office where you are paid to work.
Hugs,
marlene
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