Bloomington residents must create the community in which they want to live, Mayor John Hamilton said.
“Let’s build the world we want to live in,” Hamilton said Thursday night during his second State of the City address, which was punctuated two dozen times by applause and ended in a standing ovation. “Let’s create the city we want to live in.”
That responsibility, he says, can’t fall to the federal or state government or to the media or bloggers or the dividers or fear-mongers, but rather falls on the community.
“It’s us,” Hamilton said. “In these challenging, scary times, it’s our time.”
After many rounds of thank-yous, Hamilton started his address with a story about how a woman named Robin Chase founded Zipcar and what she says about the process of building the car-sharing company up from one car to 10,000 over the course of 16 years.
Chase’s mantra, Hamilton said, was simple: “Trust people. Believe in honesty. Think people are good. Trust in those things. By doing so you make them happen.”
Most directly, though, she’s said that key thing Hamilton built on in his speech: “Let’s build the world we want to live in.”