The Lansdale 150th Anniversary Parade on Saturday was wonderful and it was excellent seeing so many people coming out to kick off our birthday week. However, Wednesday of this week, at 5:30 p.m. in Memorial Park, Lansdale Borough officially turns 150 years young!
This is quite the moment to celebrate and it is certainly an interesting time to be mayor.
As mayor, I am often called upon to help residents and community members honor and celebrate their 100th birthday. Typically, these events are marked with proclamations highlighting all the amazing achievements that the individual has seen across their lifetime. It is not usual to note heroics in war time, community service in peace time, and an outpouring of appreciation for their longevity and care for those they call their family and friends.
But what do you say about a community? After much reflection, I realized it is not much different then what I would honor for any resident celebrating their centennial. Lansdale is a community of people who have dedicated their lives to service. A living, breathing, amalgamation of residents who have dedicated their time and effort to making sure that our future is bright for the generations that come after us. It has been this way since 1872 and it remains true today.
Our focus on building toward a better tomorrow is why this celebration so important. Turning 150 is certainly an accomplishment, but it is not the number that matters. It is the incredible task that we have perpetuated over that period without hesitation or pause that we celebrate. The laboring of residents to maintain our progress, to update and upkeep the community to meet our changing needs, and the lifetimes it has taken to do so that we really celebrate in this milestone.
A perfect example of this is Lansdale Electric. Millions of dollars have been dedicated to building and maintaining a critical infrastructure that every resident can utilize. However, its value doesn’t stop at providing electricity. It extends to the flexibility infrastructure can provide a community. An electric system built in the 1900s has allowed for modern day expansions like solar power generation, high speed internet hyper loops, and integrated camera systems. None of these were even inklings at the turn of the century, let alone the predictable outcome of building an electric infrastructure, but they knew it could open the door to a better Lansdale.
That ingenuity, that long term view of the community, is what we’re celebrating — 150 years of thinking beyond ourselves and trying to achieve that goal of a more perfect community, even if we might never achieve it. It is the effort that we celebrate this week and our affirmation that Lansdale will always be a community striving to build a better version of ourselves for another 150 years.
Happy Birthday Lansdale! I am honored to re-affirm our commitment to this endeavor!
(Mayoral Musings is a weekly op-ed column submitted to North Penn Now, courtesy of Lansdale Borough Mayor Garry Herbert. The views expressed are his own.)
See also:
Mayoral Musings: Lansdale’s 150th Anniversary Parade
Mayoral Musings: Lansdale Solar Power Program Update
Mayoral Musings: National Night Out Event Scheduled for Tuesday
Mayoral Musings: Let’s Talk About Crime in Lansdale
Mayoral Musings: Honoring ‘Mayor Mike’
