WEST CHESTER – In January 2008, the United States was beginning to get to know the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, in his longshot run for president. Snow fell in Baghdad, Iraq, for the first time in 100 years that month, and the Philadelphia Eagles lost a heartbreaking NFC championship game that would have led to a second Super Bowl appearance in less than five years to the Arizona Cardinals.
And Democrat Kathi Cozzone and Republican Terence Farrell began their first month as Chester County commissioners, the positions they would hold for 12 consecutive years, and bring them both modicums of regional, state, national and even international recognition.
On Thursday, the two office holders, who over the years became not just colleagues but also professional friends, were bid farewell by a bevy of current and former county staff members and office holders – as well as awarded honors from the county’s Fraternal Order of Police lodge along with their fellow commissioner Michelle Kichline – as they sat for their last voting session as commissioners.
The two lost their bids for re-election to their fourth terms this year, Cozzone in the May primary and Farrell in last month’s November General Election. But whatever sorrow they may harbor over not being able to continue their work as commissioners was hidden from display as they accepted the accolades of those attending the commissioners’ meeting.
“I am saddened to see this successful era come to an end,” said former county chief executive Mark Rupsis. “What you have done is to make Chester County an outstanding county.”
The duo were greeted with a list of the notable accomplishments the county had seen in the 12 years the pair served on the board, a bulleted list than ran to more than 10 pages and listed everything from the construction of the new Chester County Justice Center in 2007 to that of bird houses in county parks by teenagers on juvenile probation.
Kichline, who has served with Cozzone and Farrell for the past five years and will stay on as commissioner with incoming Democrats Josh Maxwell and Marian Moskowitz, noted their farewell by first quoting from President John F. Kennedy about the meaning of gratitude – “We must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them” – and then paying tribute to the pair in her own words as public servants of the highest integrity.
“They don’t just speak,” Kichline said. “To quote an expression my kids might use, they don’t just talk, they actually walk the walk.”
On Tuesday, at the conclusion of the commissioners’ work session, Cozzone and Farrell gave impromptu signing-off messages, not knowing that their staff had put together the tribute that came on Thursday.
“It has been my privilege to serve with you all,” Cozzone said, addressing those county employees, department heads, and elected officials in the board room. “You have done the best as you could to make Chester County the gold standard in the Commonwealth.”
“There is probably no better job on Earth,” Farrell said, noting that in other political posts he would have had to convince dozens of others the worthiness of some or other project he wanted completed. “I only had to convince one other person that I had a great idea, and it got done.”
Both Cozzone and Farrell noted that despite being in opposing political parties, they had succeeded in keeping their relationship professionally cordial and politically respectful – at a time when comity is sorely lacking in government.
“Kathi and I have served with a level of civility and a level of dialog in the public square in terms of respect,” Farrell said. “Hopefully that will endure in the new board of commissioners.” He and Cozzone will next month oversee the inauguration of the new county commissioners, as well as other county elected officials and judges.
In her tribute to the two on Tuesday, Kichline quoted from a speech given by Fred Rogers – television’s “Mr. Rogers” – at the 2002 commencement for Dartmouth College. She alluded to the “gifts” that her two fellow commissioners had given not just her but the county’s citizens.
“I’d like to give you all an invisible gift,” Kichline said. “A gift of a silent minute to think about those who have helped you become who you are today. Some of them may be here right now. Some may be far away. Whomever you’ve been thinking about, imagine how grateful they must be, that during your silent times, you remember how important they are to you.
But, she said, still quoting Rogers, “it’s not the honors and the prizes, and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted. That we never have to fear the truth. That the bedrock of our lives, from which we make our choices, is very good stuff.”
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
