“If you have one leg in tomorrow and one leg in yesterday then that leaves you to piddle on today.”
This might be a good description of how our elected officials are operating.
First, they look down the road to a magical transformation of a warehouse on Zene Street, to building an auditorium downtown, to supporting a conference center in Kittrell, and enlarging our water treatment plant. These are very expensive shaky legs they have in tomorrow.
The legs in yesterday are shaky too. They wobble as we hope they’ll tackle the expense of the under-utilized Operations Center; as they figure out what to do with McGregor Hall; as they explore how to pay for city hall; as they find money to widen Beckford Drive; and as they stew over the debt from the Embassy Foundation.
That leaves the piddle of collapsing water and sewer lines, underpaid and overworked city employees, broken streets and sidewalks, blighted neighborhoods, commercial buildings with trees growing through their roofs, the fiasco of joint-funding ventures, and a depleted general fund balance to deal with (or not deal with) those problems today.
Have they forgotten that today counts?
If you are one of us who pay taxes and abide by the decisions that our elected officials are making, you might feel that you are being piddled on — and with good reason.
If you want to know why this community is so distressed, the reason can be summed up in one word: livability. We lack it, we need it, we will never progress without it, and we can afford it if we stop joint funding. Now, it would be nice to have biking trails and walking paths, scenic parks and greenways, but this is not the livability I am talking about. I am talking about the simple livability of having your property protected against blight and your property values protected against demolition by neglect and minimum housing violations. We can always start small, but this one component of livability would go a long way to making us a more progressive community where people feel they are not being piddled upon.
When are our elected officials going to look at the problems of today and correct them? Why look ahead to doing anything more until the monumental and overwhelming needs of today are met? What kind of reasoning are they using to keep jumping into the future with costly and unnecessary projects?
And even more disturbing is why they cannot work to correct the mistakes of yesterday before they leap forward to take on more. We need to put a think tank in place for our government. Some far-fetched ideas may arise. Could the Operations Center house a fire station? Could City Hall can still be moved there, making the expense of the Rose Avenue building go away? Would McGregor Hall make a good post office? And could someone please find the guts to confront the Embassy Foundation about their debt and obligation?
We call on our elected officials to fix what is before you before you take on more. We call on you to fix what is behind you before you obligate the taxpayers in this community to one more cent. That is what your oath of office requires of you. You have allowed this community to wobble long enough on these legs — one in yesterday and one in tomorrow — while we citizens get the piddle in the middle.