I am going to try and make the case why you need to change you plans and show up  in front of the Newark Municipal Building at 220 South Main St. Newark, DE at 5 pm….

There will be a candlelight vigil to demonstrate against the potential installation of the Newark Power Plant.

I should probably start by saying if you live anywhere in Northern Delaware or South New Jersey, this may be the most important event controlling you life for the rest of its time here on earth.

This decision affects every breath of air you will take.  This decision will decide how healthy your old age will be.  This decision will decide how long your children will live.  This decision will decide whether your pets live and die, cancer free…

There are very few things we actually get to weigh in on that have such a profound impact upon our existence….  Politics come and go, and usually don’t kill us.  Jobs come and go and usually don’t kill us. In-laws come and go and usually don’t kill us.

But chemicals, many of them radioactive, kill us…  There is undeniable proof that they do….  Despite attempts to wash them under our stream of consciousness, while we are distracted by other things, they enter our body’s cells, change the genetic makeup, and those cells then start producing cancerous versions of their new genetic makeup….

The only way to prevent that process is to never start it.

The power plant burns natural gas.  That natural gas contains elements from the earth.  Most elements are poisonous to life. Arsenic, Radon, Lead, Uranium, will be sucked in every breath you take…

Enough scaring you.  Just wanted to tell you why this was important.

Many things in life we have no control over.  Our boss tells us to go to Delaware we go to Delaware.  We have a child, we accept how it comes out.  A chemical plant dumped residue into the ground before we were born, we live around it.

It is rare when we have a chance to change our life.  We have one chance and that is tonight.

The City of Newark must change the zoning underneath that power plant for it to be built.  They are deciding now.   They want to do the right decision.  Just like you, if you were in their place, would also want to do the right decision.

If they hear from the Governor, the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the Labor Unions of the Building Trades, the state’s own DNREC, and hear nothing from you, their decision will be obvious.  Just like yours would be in that position.  Look at all these people you would say, who need this to go forward and look at all the good going forward would do.  And look how only a very few people care about stopping it.  Obviously if I jump in front of the flying bus, for the sake of a handful of people, i’m getting run over……

But jumping in front of a bus to keep it from wallowing through a gigantic crowd of people is different ballgame.  Instead of being the “disruptor” of progress, you have become the “Protector” of “the people.”  All of us would like to be known as the protector of the people, and so would those elected to govern Newark.

We just have to give them the reason they need.  We have to show up.  If we don’t show up tonight…. , the power plant gets built.  Toxic chemicals start falling on our lawns, cars and pets,

If we suffer the complete inconvenience to our schedules and do show, and show up in large enough numbers, we will stop the zone change and thereby stop the power plant….

WE need more than 10, 20, 30, or 40…. We need 1000’s  … If you don’t show, it won’t happen…. If you do show, it may still happen, but you could say, that when Newark needed its finest to show, you were there…..

And win or lose, that is what is most important about being an activist….  Showing that it matters to you….

You may choose to slough if off with “oh, it’s raining.  it’s cold.  it’s flu- season”…..  but fast forward to 10 years hence, you lying almost dead hooked up to monitors so the staff knows whether they can shuck your corpse out to replace you with another body,….

You could have been home, holding your grandkids, making them dinner, reading them books, if you had only showed up tonight, 5pm on S. Main Street (Old Elkton Road) in Newark to show those fine people on Newark’s City Council, that yes, this is important to you….

It is tonight.  Change your plans and go…..