
…I struggle to understand what’s happening in our local government.
(This post probably applies to communities all over the country and world.)
I’m not going to rail against the machine here but I will give my two cents worth of opinion.
The first thing is that our Mayor, and some of the City Council, seems to lack any amount of charisma and energy. I know the economy sucks and unemployment is high, but it’s amazing what a person with charisma and positive vibes can do. It’s sad to me…people look to “leaders” for direction and tone…and right now I feel like this city is direction-less and tone-less. If the leaders don’t provide the direction or the tone (attitude, feeling), the city sits stagnant.
This is not about political agenda at all, this is strictly about being able to raise morale and bring people together in a community. There are a lot of smart people out there that may have great ideas on things that can be done but the city is not fostering that kind of community. This is a leadership issue not a political issue.
Most recently there has been some scandal in the news about our local police chief, it has not yet been proven whether she did do these things or did not do these things that she is being accused of…and I am not here to debate that. My two cents though is that somebody somewhere should be saying something, I understand that many people can’t talk due to legal reasons but to leave a community in limbo about this is absolutely disgusting.
The last thing I will complain about is all the empty commercial buildings downtown and near downtown. I keep hearing from business owners that the owners of the buildings are not willing to lower the rent at all which is driving many businesses to look elsewhere for a store front. If this is true those building owners are morons and the city officials need to be making phone calls and knocking on doors to persuade these building owners to keep rent prices where they are or lower them to make it more appealing to the small businesses.
Look, we are a tourist town and nothing looks more pitiful than a bunch of abandoned store fronts downtown where all of these tourists end up walking around. Again, can somebody somewhere do something? Anything? This strikes me as an easy way to go about handling it but maybe I’m naïve…either way, let’s stop TALKING about the problems, and instead start coming up with SOLUTIONS!!!
This goes out to all of us, and especially those in leadership roles…are you simply filling a position or are you going to do something amazing with the position you have?
All that being said, I do not dislike anyone involved unless they are simply being greedy…there’s no need for that. We will either survive as a community or go down as a community. What frustrates me is that we are falling back on status quo ways to run a city and conduct business…it does not work. We need people, we need leaders, that are going to by dynamic, energetic, and bold. We need people ready to solve problems rather than simply discuss them. We need people to thrive in the position they are in not simply fill the position they are in.
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