Heres my closing summary from the LWV Candidate Forum tonight: In the 1960s, Marshall Hahn became president of VT. He had a vision that the small school of a few thousand cadets could be something better and he put in motion a plan that would change the face of Montgomery County forever. When I came to this area in 1977, VT had about 15,000 students, and Blacksburg and Christiansburg were basically hamlets. Now, Tech is twice that size and continues to grow, and the population of the county is about the same as the city of Roanoke. As much as we like to tout our small-town, special place culture, we are actually a much more sophisticated community than we often realize. But the culture of our civic leadership has not aligned itself with the growth and emerging sophistication of our economy. Up to now, I feel that we are, by and large, just hanging onto the VT rocket and hoping mostly good things happen. But we are approaching a time where we need to lead the region in all aspects of civic and public life. And we cannot do that unless we imagine what we want our future to look like, and then make plans, TOGETHER, to construct that future. Building the future requires resources, and too often we see the expenditure as a drain rather than an investment. Our job as civic leaders is to guide the community to the vision, and then create the means by which to achieve it. Not by letting it happen, or hoping it happens, but by MAKING IT HAPPEN. Where does the money come from? Taxes of one sort or another. But to control the growth of taxes, we need to think about other ways to generate the revenue – through aggressive economic development and expansion of regional tourism. My granddaughter Wendy will be 18 months old on election day. I hope to be around to watch her grow up, go to school, play some sports, maybe be in the marching band, have her first boyfriend and even her first heartbreak. I hope I will be around to see her launch out into the world and do great things. And if she wants to do those great things in Montgomery County, I want her to have the opportunity to have a life in this wonderful place where her mother grew up. I believe the best way to guarantee that future is to begin to plan it today. As the old saying goes, THE BEST TIME TO PLANT A TREE IS 20 YEARS AGO, BUT THE SECOND BEST TIME IS TODAY If I am elected, I will do everything in my power to help us create a vision of the future, and begin to put it into place.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 02:12:46 +0000
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