Editorial: ‘Citizens’ Think Independently; Then, They Act

The Freeman’s Journal
Adrian Kuzminski’s books combine philosophy, activism.

Thinking back to when Tom Garretson, the Cherry Valley town supervisor in those tilting-at-windmills days, was named The Freeman’s Journal first Citizen of the Year in 2006, a particular pair of qualities emerge:  Independent thinking, followed by action.
Garretson showed those qualities as, convinced by the potential problems being documented against industrial windmills, he shifted his town’s stance from passive to pro-active in the face of familial and political pressure.  He was determined to do what he believed was right, and he did it.
Cooperstown Mayor Carol B. Waller showed the same qualities in 2007, bringing together the expertise necessary – from law enforcement to emergency medical services to traffic control – that ensured the unprecedented 80,000 fans at the Cal Ripken/Tony Gwynn Induction enjoyed a flawless weekend.
Penney Gentile, the Citizen of 2008, had turned tragedy into triumph.  Spurred by teen-age son Chris’ death in a car crash, she sought out the optimum drivers’-ed curriculum – the State of Georgia’s – and before she was done an Albany task force was recommending similar measures for New York State.
Last year, the four village trustees – Joe Booan, Eric Hage, Willis Monie and Neil Weiller – who discovered that Cooperstown’s finances were drifting, drifting and took control of the process, shared the Citizen of the Year designation for 2009.
Adrian Kuzminski, 2010 Citizen of the Year, is cut from the same cloth of independent thinking, followed by action.
Like the others, Kuzminski fearlessly exercises the prerogatives of citizenship in these United States, of getting involved, in petitioning government to redress grievances (or joining those local governments and changing them from the inside), of acting instead of complaining.
After moving to Otsego County in 1980, he could have done nothing. Instead, he helped enact zoning in the Town of Otsego, and since has raised the alarum on threats to Otsego Lake’s quality, on our imperial adventures of the past decade, on peak oil, on industrial wind and, for the past year and a half, to hydrofracking, the greatest threat of all to our local quality of life.
“I’m confident in my belief that this is totally the wrong thing to do,” he said of that threat, adding at another point, “However you slice or dice it, it’s a bad thing.”
Not everyone agrees on every – or even any – issue with Kuzminski, or Garretson, Waller, Gentile, Booan, Eric Hage, Monie or Weiller.
That’s fine – it’s a free country, (or as free as we have the courage to claim.)
But everyone, all of us, can express appreciation for their participation in public life, for voluntarily taking on burdens and challenges for the common good.