The Hero of the Levy

Hurrah, hurrah! Levy passed! We have succeeded! We beat the odds, literally! We collectively put our money where our mouths are and passed our levy!  

A Party For The Levy Passing! Gold stars for everyone! Congratulatory party and doing the limbo for a solid week! (Okay, maybe that's too much. Three days of limbo are far more sensible.) 

Party!

Party!

Party!

I’ve seen posts and comments abounding in the last twenty-four hours with this general theme, but in all this congratulations and praise, something is missing. SOMEONE is missing. There’s a big someone here who deserves the credit more than anyone else. That someone is one of my favorite people in the world. 

You, Pasco. You.

This is my love for you, Pasco. It's big, it's shiny and it might make you a little uncomfortable. 

To you and no other, Sir Alastair Pemberton tips his hat.
He's from Alabama so you can trust him. 

Here’s the thing. We can nod our hats to the levy committee, we can nod our hats to the editorial writers of the Tri-City Herald, and we can certainly give a well deserved nod to the parents, children and teachers who stood out on street corners waving signs in the frigid cold. But we all know they aren’t the real heroes here. We, they, and all of us should give credit where credit is due. And if we’re going to be really honest with ourselves, that credit is due entirely to the people of Pasco. To you, my friends. All of you.

I know what you did, and I know what it took for you to do it. I want you to know that I know it wasn't easy.

Voting for something you believe in is easy. Voting for something you believe with all your heart when there’s a high likelihood of success at the other end of that yes vote is likewise simple. But we, myself included, asked something far more complicated and difficult of Pasco. We asked you to give PSD another shot despite all previous evidence. To take a leap of faith. To vote yes even when you’re worried your vote will be abused. A yes vote, with trepidation and fragile hope for the future, though there’s no guarantee that hope is going to be fulfilled.  

Ugh. I want to give the school district money for clubs,
but I gave them money for curriculum for like fifteen
years and they didn't buy curriculum. Ugh.

We’ve asked a lot of you, and I don’t want you to think I didn’t notice. You had some serious, very real and very pertinent worries going into this levy vote. You felt betrayed and ignored by the people asking for your money. You might have felt fed up with this district after having witnessed its complete disregard for integrity during the strike-- But you came through anyway. You swallowed your pride and put the kids first no matter how painful it was to check that yes box. I’m not going to try to pretend it wasn’t conflicting for a whole lot of you. That’s ridiculous. There is a good reason why almost every single place where there’s been a recent strike, levies fail afterward. People are upset. Things have obviously gotten off track somewhere.

We will not fail levies without a fight!

But not here. Not today. We did not go quietly into the night, we did not surrender without a fight. We moved on. We pushed through the doubts and dismay because we all know at the end of the day, that all Pasco kids are worth it. The city is worth it. We are worth it. And those crazy invading space aliens are going DOWN. ...wait. That's not right. That’s for my other blog.

Pasco, I thank you. The kids thank you and the future of the city thanks you. But today I am thanking you, personally, right now. Pasco, you did it. Nobody but you could have done it. So take that celebratory lap, stand a little taller, limbo a little lower, eat that extra slice of pie. You did it.