Normandy Park City Scene      Spring 2026
4
Mayor’sMessage
Eric Zimmerman ezimmerman@NormandyParkWA.gov
opportunity for the highest percentage of people 
in history. In Normandy Park, despite many of 
the challenges we see in our county, state, nation, 
and world, we have every reason to believe many 
good things are ahead in our future: after all, 
most of us want similar ‘good things,’ and we 
work together to achieve them, which makes that 
achievement much likelier.
Conversely, I also love contentment. Today, we 
already live in ‘the times dreamed of’ by so many 
who came before us, or even amidst the dreams 
of our past selves. If you envision certain things 
as if they are a bowl of special coins—for example, 
the number of times I’ll go to a 
playground with my son during 
his excellent four-year-old stage—
that bowl probably has fewer 
coins than I think it does. He’s 
already halfway to age five, and I 
wonder if I’ve got any more than 
a dozen left. What if it’s fewer? 
One day, when he’s a teenager, I’ll 
think back on the pricelessness. I 
already know I’ll feel I misspent 
too many of the chances I had.
We each have different ups and 
downs today, and some of us are 
in times of sadness while others are in times of 
joy. Many of us are in the times we dreamed of, 
but have worries that keep us from seeing it.
Hope’s eternal hope-springing is part of what 
makes us human, but the practice of living in the 
richness of having-now what we hoped-before is 
the other part! I hope your Spring in Normandy 
Park is one of contentment, hopefulness, and 
peace, and that we keep working together towards 
the ‘good things’ that make everyone’s lives in 
Normandy Park better.
H
ope springs 
eternal! Three 
of Alexander 
Pope’s most famous 
words—though his talent 
for aphorisms also gave 
us “To err is human” and 
“Fools rush in”, among 
several other phrases 
everyone seems to know 
without necessarily 
knowing who said them first. Happy Springtime, 
Normandy Park! As a somehow unpleasantly mild 
winter gives way to hints of 
a beautiful spring, our hope 
indeed springs eternal in our 
gem of a city.
Today, Pope’s eternal 
epigram is usually used with 
half (or none!) of its original 
meaning. The famous line 
on hope is part of a couplet 
that continues with what I 
bend here into slightly more-
modern English: humankind 
never ‘is now’, but always ‘is 
later’, blessed. Pope pokes 
fun at the human tendency to 
stretch our necks to look around the good things 
we have today, towards things we hope to have in 
the future.
I tend to have a both/and view on ‘good things’. 
I like optimism—a version of hope springing 
eternal—and history should build our confidence 
that humanity tends to labor towards collective 
‘good things’ which eventually improve life for 
everyone. Our modern world—imperfect as 
it is—perhaps offers the most abundance and 
In Normandy Park, 
despite many of the 
challenges we see in our 
county, state, nation, 
and world, we have 
every reason to believe 
many good things are 
ahead in our future.

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