El Rescate: Thoughts on the Chile Mine Rescue


“We’ll see each other through.”

-From The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin


Almost by definition, “news” is usually about something bad. The every day triumphs and kindnesses that often punctuate our lives generally go unremarked, while disaster usually commands Page One; if it bleeds, it leads.

Yet every once in a while, a bad beginning produces a happy ending, as when 33 miners, trapped half a mile underground for more than 60 days, were successfully rescued in Chile yesterday afternoon. While the world watched, waited, and prayed, an international effort months in the making came to a conclusion more successful than many had dared hope.

In the back of our collective mind there always lurked a fearful apprehension that what seemed like a hopelessly Rube Goldberg contrivance for bringing the miners thousands of feet up to the surface and safety might not work at all, or might fail during the operation, leaving some or all of the miners trapped and possibly condemned to a miserable, lingering death.

Certainly, in a time of diminished expectations and reduced confidence, such an outcome might have mirrored the mindset of many, but today, all 33 of the miners are on the surface, safe and sound. Yesterday afternoon, just as the Cathedral City City Council was preparing to go into its evening session, the news broke that the last miner had been brought safely to the surface. I was able to share that news with my colleagues and with the city staff and members of the public who were present in the Council chamber.

The look of palpable relief on the faces of many in the room told its own story of how involved all of us had become in the rescue effort, and how much emotional capital we had invested in the safe return of the trapped miners to the surface, to the world of light, and to their families.

In that moment, as people around the world shared a sense of relief, of promises kept and hopes fulfilled, we were all Chilean; in that brief moment, the collective heart of humanity was beating as one.

In a grouchy and often angrily divided time, it is all the more important to cherish the events that bring us together. As human beings, we are at our best when we build communities and when we rally to one another in times of adversity. For there is, deep within the human soul, a strong sense that we rise or fall, live or die, together; as John Donne observed nearly four centuries ago, we are involved in one another. Our profoundly human conviction that in tough times, we’ll see each other through -- a conviction amply borne out in Chile over the last two months -- is what makes it possible for a civil society not merely to endure, but to thrive.

For those of us who are called to public service, the greatest challenge of our service is remembering and reaffirming the importance of community. It is easy to practice a politics of division; indeed, our dialogue often fixates upon finding points of contention over which to engage in furious controversy, of never letting facts get in the way of a good fight.

The harder, nobler politics we ought to pursue is one in which we remember that by seeing each other through, we build a civil society in which ideas may compete, initiative can be cherished, innovation can change lives and communities for the better, and the freedoms we hold dear can be enjoyed by all.

For in the end, our job in public service is to prove that Thomas Hobbes was wrong when he spoke of the state of nature as being one of “war of all against all,” and our lives therein being “poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In Chile, the world came together and showed that, even if briefly, we need not resign ourselves to such a dystopian, Hobbesian view.

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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he is seeking re-election to the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Municipal Corporation or of its Redevelopment Agency.

REMARKS TO THE CATHEDRAL CITY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

[The following “revised and extended” remarks are based on my address to the Cathedral City Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, October 6, 2010.]

When my Cathedral city neighbors first called me to service as a city councilman, I didn’t make a lot of promises I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to keep.

I didn’t offer undertakings that would depend upon a vote, because as anyone who has ever served in local government can tell you, with a five person council, you always have to be able to count to three.

The promises I did make were ones I knew I could keep.

I promised that I would be independent, that I would be innovative, and I would carry out the duties of my office with integrity.

I have kept all of those promises.

I have been and will continue to be independent. I am not a member of any clique, group, or faction in city government. The only team I play for is team Cathedral City, the more than 50,000 neighbors whom it is my honor to serve. And on your behalf -as The Desert Sun noted when it endorsed my re-election- I have never been afraid to ask the tough questions; I won’t march along with the status quo, and I won’t accept conformist groupthink. My commitment is, and always has been, that I will represent 100 percent of the people of this community 100 percent of the time, no matter how you look, how you live, or how you love; how you work, how you worship, or how you vote.

I have kept that promise.


Not only have I been independent, I have also been, and will continue to be, the most innovative and forward-thinking member of the city Council. The tangible proof of my track record of innovation can be seen in Cathedral City’s Downtown Energy Savings/Conservation Initiative, which is not only saving the City more than $100,000 a year off its Edison bill, but which is also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by hundreds of tons a year, and helping enhance America’s national security by incrementally reducing our national dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels.

If re-elected, I will work to bring to Cathedral city an initiative that has been successful in other Riverside County communities, which brings together Labor and the development community in an innovative apprenticeship project to teach unemployed workers building-trades skills while rehabilitating homes which have been abandoned through foreclosure or because their owners simply walked away from burdens they could no longer bear.

If re-elected I will insist that we take up again the great work of not only greening Cathedral City’s economy by encouraging economic development in the new, emerging “green industries,” but also by exploring the possibility of a waste fired electricity generating plant to enable the city either to sell electricity to a utility or, through community choice aggregation, to sell electricity to our own residents less expensively than Edison does. Such an energy solution represents a win-win; proceeds of electricity sales to utilities can go to augment our struggling general fund, and a community choice aggregation could enable the city to provide inexpensive electricity to residents while also helping to grow our general fund -- all without having to seek any new tax increases.

That’s a promise of innovation I’ll push to make real for all of my fellow residents in Cathedral City.

I have conducted myself with integrity. I have never been, and will never be, a captive of any special interest group, any time or anywhere. I have never sought, and will never seek, to enrich myself or anyone close to me at the expense of the public fisc. I have not sought, and will not accept, the endorsement of any collective bargaining unit with which the City is now, or may be, engaged in employee contract negotiations. I would never want to subject any collective bargaining unit, the City, or myself, to the slightest degree of suspicion with respect to the contract negotiation process.

These are the self-denying promises I made when I first took office, and I can proudly look my neighbors in the eye and say that I have kept them, and will keep them.

But public service is not just based on making and keeping promises about oneself and one’s conduct. For not only did I make promises which I have kept, but I also made some very simple commitments about the way in which I would approach policy and public service.

I made a commitment that I would be a careful steward of the public’s money. I have said “no” to expenditures that I felt were wasteful, frivolous, or were better made by the private sector. I have been the Grinch by voting “no” on the downtown Christmas tree lighting, because I feel it is an opportunity to bring the private sector into partnership with the city to support a non-core activity that should not be subsidized using scarce taxpayer dollars. I have also consistently opposed the unconstrained growth of the city’s general fund budget, because I feel, and have felt, that we must draw the line against dipping too far, too fast, too soon, into reserves that -despite the sunny sentiments of some in city government- continue to diminish.

In tough economic times, the greatness of the community is measured by the extent to which we the people come together and see each other through to better days. We cannot afford the false and dangerous luxury of fragmenting this most richly diverse community in our Coachella Valley by indulging in wedge issue or culture war politics.

While others may seek to turn on one another, working out their insecurities in a politics of division, I ask my neighbors to recommit to building a Cathedral City we can all be proud to live in, to work in, to invite visitors to enjoy, and most importantly, to pass on to our posterity.

I am ready to continue that great work. I ask for your help to build that Cathedral City we know is possible, and I ask for your vote so that together we can all see each other through to better days.

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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he is seeking re-election to the city council. The views expressed herein are his own. For more information, please visit his website, www.Marchand2010.com