Dear editor,
I have some ideas on how the city leaders should proceed to make Iola the best possible place for its citizens to live. The first thing is the Council needs to put together a plan. Not just any plan, but a plan that makes it cheaper and better to live here than any other town around. This plan is going to take forward thinking and some time to implement, but I believe it can be done without any one group or person being cut short of what they feel they are owed. After reading the paper on the first budget hearing I can honestly say some council members are starting to get it. This is my list of what I believe is the only sustainable future for Iola:
1. Volunteer fire department.
2. An ambulance service that picks up the patient and delivers them to our fine hospital. The only training I believe the attendants need is CPR. Let the doctors do the doctoring.
3. Cut the number of city employees to 50, total (down from 107). The size of this town does not need an administrator’s assistant. It needs only one code enforcement officer. Cross training of other employees is a must.
4. Cut the chip and seal road maintenance way back. I think it’s possible to do an eight-year quadrant rotation instead of four years.
5. Negotiate a deal for Westar to take over the electric distribution and Kansas Gas Service take over the gas distribution. A lot of towns I’ve been working in are even privatizing the water distribution. I’m afraid we’re stuck with the water plant.
I’m not naive enough to think this can be done overnight. It took us about 35 years to get into this mess. I believe it would take a minimum of 10 years to start our way out of this mess. It can mostly be done through attrition. Will it take some courage and some planning? Absolutely, but if we start now and give a vision for future council people, I believe it can be done. Every time I see my good friend the firefighter he asks me why I’m trying to take his job from him. This is not my goal at all. My goal, and the goal of the council, should be to make this town affordable and desirable for future generations. I’ve always said that if you take care of the people that live here now, instead of spending a lot of money trying to get people here, you might make it desirable enough so people want to move here.
Don Erbert,
Iola, Kan.
