Labor Day message from Mayor Ward

Press release from the City of Gainesville

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward released the following message today:

This Labor Day, please join me in honoring the neighbors who make our city run. These are the folks who give us clean water and working traffic signals. They teach our children, treat us when we’re sick, and support our technology. They build our homes, parks, streets, and stores.

Maybe President Lyndon B. Johnson said it best in 1968, in a special message to Congress about protecting American workers:

“When Walt Whitman heard America singing a century ago, he heard that sound in workers at their jobs…. Jobs are the measure of how far we have come.”

When I measure how far we have come in Gainesville, it makes me proud. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to do—far from it. But I have confidence we’ll get there because we’re a community of neighbors who love a challenge and are never afraid to do the work.

Labor Day asks us to see how special that is and give thanks.

— Mayor Harvey L. Ward