Focus on Growth

The new year has arrived and people are making resolutions and setting goals.

Hopefully our community leaders are focused on growth.

Three areas that I believe we should be working on are economic development, addressing poverty levels, and healthcare.

In the weeks ahead I’ll be examining each of these areas in-depth.

A primary focus on economic development is not only enticing manufacturing and business growth, but to determine what the community will support and what it won’t support.

It should be a starting point.

If the community is against it, it matters not how good the idea is.

A prime example would be the failure of votes to bring a community hospital to Kennett. In that particular case, the majority of the county did not support the measure.

The community leaders may very well have to build community support.

This takes time.

Remember it is not a quick fix.

The problems we are facing are the results of years of, arguably good or bad decisions, and will take years to solve.

Economic growth and poverty levels, of course go hand in hand.

To help decrease our poverty levels we have to grow our middle class, and in order to do that we have to bring in middle class jobs.

Jobs that will pay a decent wage.

This is also essential to keep our youth here.

Without this most valuable commodity, our youth, everything crumbles, from retail outlets and restaurants, to our area churches.

I’ll share my thoughts and suggestions on how to accomplish some of these goals in future columns as well as interviews with area leaders and business executives to keep you updated on the plans for our community.

The majority of our citizens are aware of these problems, they just don’t get involved in the solution process. We’re all good at complaining, but when it comes to rolling up our sleeves and working towards results, we roll out excuses after excuse on why we can’t.

I welcome input from our readers, that can be passed along to those on the various committees. Write a letter to the editor with your suggestions. It won’t take up much of your time and you may encourage others to get involved.

Most of all we just need to get started.

Let 2020 be the year of action.

I look forward to what the future holds for us.

Prosper or continued decline.

It really is up to us.

See you out there.