I have lived in several places during my lifetime and I have come to realize that comfort with the city you live in boils down to three basic things: Do I feel safe? Am I hopeful for improvements and programs? Is there pride in where I live? Certainly not an all inclusive list, and when I speak of pride I am not referring to the pride you feel from being from a certain area, I mean the pride that you have in the moment. Unfortunately at this time the answer to those three questions are all NO. There are a multitude of ways to improve many facets of our lives here in this great city. There is money available for many different projects and programs that would benefit us as citizens, I do not want to hear we can only function on what is in the bank. You stretch yourself as far as you can by realizing revenue from sources like grants, donations, tax incentives to draw in business who then expands the tax base of the city. You provide as many police officers as possible and make sure they are out in the community providing not just police actions but community programs that bring residents together and fosters the pride and involvement that strengthens the city. You restart the fire based education programs in the schools and expand it to the seniors with both educational programs and home visits to evaluate for fire safe living. You expand the ability of the Fire Department and Building departments to provide inspection and follow up services to businesses in a timely manner and demonstrate to those businesses the need for their involvement in community based projects. Infrastructure in the foundation to everything else, strong public safety programs draw in business and citizens for the reasons I listed above. That in turn increases revenue and pride in the community. Look at the turnaround in Oak Park and all of it is directly related to the strength of their public safety. We can have a great city again, we certainly have great people living here, we just need to add some more and show them they are safe, that things improve all the time, and we are proud to show them who we are. We can do this!
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 12:23:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015