In case you miss it in the paper, Im posting my next installment here on Facebook. Below is the first of a few installments Im planning to write on Salems economy. Hello again. In this installment I would like to look at Salems economic and community development. There has never been a syndicated poll taken in Salem on any issue as far as I know, but a very community-minded and well-known citizen has gathered opinions from many residents in our community. The consensus is that through the efforts of economic development, very little has been accomplished in bringing industry or good jobs to our area in the last several years. I think economic and community development is crucial and should be a high priority in Salem, Mo. I am not sure why we have seen little progress over the years. Perhaps the City Administration has failed to express their anticipation for results or perhaps the Administration has failed to give proper directives to what they think the level of progress should be. Personally, I have never seen a vision statement generated from the City Administrative Body. I do not know that we as a City even have a vision for our future. I believe the Economic and Community Developer should be required to justify their position’s existence. In other words, they should bring enough funding into the City to more than pay their salary. I also think it is a duty incumbent upon the City Administration to provide a vision statement that would set goals and expectations for the Economic Developer. I have been involved with Federal Funding and grant writing in the past, and as a rule, 30-50 percent of grant funding comes in the form of unrestricted funds. These funds many times fall into an administrative category, thus enabling the Economic Developer to draw a salary. I am familiar with a person who fundraises for a non-profit organization. She generates several millions of dollars for them annually, and I am sure they are more than pleased to cover her salary. We have discussed funding for a number of projects. From our conversations, I feel that our City could well be a recipient of a good bit of grant money for economic development. However, we must have the both the initiative to go after it and a plan of what we want to change and how that change will come about. At the present, there are only a very few major entities which provide the lifeblood for our community. We cannot and should not sit on our hands and just hope that these companies will be around in perpetuity. If our community is to survive and grow we must look outside the box. We must have a vision. We must look at trends and projections of the global economy and position ourselves to become a part of those trends. We cannot survive on the hope that nothing will ever change. Be assured that things will change and nothing lasts forever. We must prepare for tomorrow. Keen attention to economic development is essential for this preparation. I will expand on some of these thoughts and other concerns in my next installment. God bless, J.J. Tune
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 01:20:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015