Today’s OD editorial says it very well: “. . . there’s an opportunity to change things for the better by building a new state-of-the-art medical center in downtown Utica. It’s a plan that must move forward.”
To be sure, the magnitude of the project and its complexities (as the OD points out) do not yield a simple, linear narrative. And the work is just beginning, as a front-page story in today’s OD illustrates. The city-county funding agreement for a necessary parking garage has been approved in principle, the story notes, and that must be followed by additional approvals. As city attorney William Borrill says, “Everyone’s working toward getting this done. If the Common Council for some reason doesn’t vote for it, I’m sure there’s going to have to be some negotiation.”
But the complexity of an evolving private-public partnership doesn’t mean, as some suggest, that a mysterious, malicious scheme is afoot. When the hospital holds its next public forum soon, rest assured that a few of these will attend armed with maps, charts and signs to support their conspiracy theories. We would hope that others take part too, as the OD puts it, “to find out more and to ask other questions.”
“There’s an opportunity to change things for the better,” the OD says. Some in our community don’t see it that way. Maybe Churchill was talking about folks like them when he wrote:
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston S. Churchill
New Mohawk Valley Hospital 