A City does need its economic life - no one should think otherwise.  It also needs it social-cultural side, that which makes its citizens happy and productive (what some refer to when they speak of quality of life issues).  We need then public servants who serve both, or better yet, stand in between both needs and insure that one part does not grow at the expense of the other.  Sometimes then, when we have had too much of one - such as economic growth, we need to focus more for a time on the other - the development of our social and cultural life, in order to bring about a balance.  This doesn't need to mean to neglect economic development, but rather to moderate it, hold it back some, while we bring more of the inner side of our human needs to the fore.  We are not just beings with physical needs who need an economic life, but also beings with spiritual needs, who need our schools, churchs, charities and especially our sense of community to be equal to the demands of the whole as well.

How do we do this in a practical way?  What follows is just one example.

Prescott is the recipient of a remarkable, yet under appreciated, grace.  What some tend to think of as an excess, the large influx of retired people to our City and its neighboring communities, brings with it something of which our unequally developed cultural life has lost sight.  The First Nations Peoples of the Americas knew this, and we need to remember it.  Our elder communities are repositories of a great deal of wisdom.  All that rich life, all that work experience, all that struggle, joy and loss, leaves behind a depth of knowing that should not be set aside.  Yet, set aside and ignored it often has been, much to our collective spiritual impoverishment.

Retired people sometimes have to continue working, because our economic life is so warped in favor of the few, but many have succeeded in freeing their time for something new, yearning for the life of an elder, for which we to our shame do not truly always offer a place.   So they golf and play cards and enjoy private interests (for some, many do not).  Some become active in their churches, others take up an interest in keeping politicians under strict view.  A few might even find a volunteer place in schools or charities.  Even so, this is a resource vastly under utilized.

Now the worst way to do this would be to highly organize it, such as create out of government something on the order of an Elder Administration.  In reality it needs to grow out of the free choices of our Elders, coupled with the public service sides and the economic sides, making room.  For example, our economic life needs inexpensive day care so that mothers who need and want to work can have adequate child care.  Elder volunteer organizations, perhaps rooted in churches, could serve this need if the various regulatory and oversight groups make adjustments.  Green space corridors needing green thumbs could benefit.  Free classes of all kinds can be offered that make our education extend beyond public schools and institutions and thence into adult life, benefitting, for example, those who had trouble reading and writing, and those who want to learn new skills.  Everywhere we look, the life of the City has needs that can be met by the untapped resources of our Elders - a true Wisdom for the Future.

Here is a list of possible other ways in which volunteer elders could enrich our way of life: 1) making more explicit the links joining the separate small communities; 2) disaster planning beyond what the public officials are require to do - including voluntary solutions to various disaster scenarios; 3) elder resource discovery and evaluation; 4) a more organized government watchdog system; 5) help develop better explanations of government activities and processes for the general citizenry (overcome bureaucracy-speak);  6) form renewal groups and change the general level of public discourse; 7) review the hidden values in various ways taxes are gathered and spent; 8)  mediate among different communites, and between them and the City; 9) anticipate changes outside what the paid professionals the City Manager hires does; etc. etc. etc.