On Saturday night, there were over 200 people at Stuart’s Centennial Gala. There were past and present commissioners, city managers and other elected officials. It was a time of celebration without a trace of contention in the air. Everyone was just having a good time.

It is now Monday morning and everyone is back to their own lives.  While we may still have a bit of the birthday feel, the problems of the city remain. If we could harness the good feelings we enjoyed on Saturday toward our city and each other, then it would be easier to find solutions to our problems going forward. Saturday did not exist in a vacuum. Everyone was truly happy to see a celebration of Stuart.

We now need to remember this and work together. The vast majority of our citizens want to reach solutions to move the city forward through consensus with a spirit of good will that would be achievable. Civility, courtesy and open-mindedness would serve all of us better as a community to find that consensus. There are no simple solutions, only hard work, to find tolerable outcomes.

The Centennial celebration will continue for the rest of the week with speeches, a parade and a festival. But also continuing will be our problems of budget deficits, taxes, the train and our river. As we move forward to tackle those and other problems, let’s remember the feeling we have toward our city expressed in the joys of her birthday.