As we set sail into 2017 Iola and Allen County would be best served if contentiousness were shoved to the background — better yet ignored altogether — and cooperation became the watchword.
Simply put, embrace the Golden Rule of reciprocity: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Ample opportunities lie ahead.
As Gary Parker bemoaned recently, far too many storefronts in Iola, Humboldt and all the other towns of Allen County merely shield a building empty of commerce.
What can be done to reverse that trend? The easy rationalization is to blame the draw of discount stores and the ease to hop into a car to spend a day at a mall.
Perhaps that’s the end of it. Maybe nothing can be done to revive downtown business districts. But, elsewhere has. Perhaps we need to send a party of open-minded folks on a journey to find out how others have swam successfully against the current.
A couple of things come to mind: Encourage renovation of older homes by owners or entrepreneurs, for resale or rent. Welcome builders to continue construction of apartments, such as those on the old hospital grounds, and housing for wage earners and the elderly, such as those on the north side of Iola.
Humboldt has a public group that has as its purpose promoting housing — a good idea that should find a spark elsewhere in the county.
Those who have studied what it takes to entice businesses, industry and new residents for years have identified lack of affordable housing as a priority. Let’s sign on to their campaign and find a solution. Tax credits and the Neighborhood Revitalization Program are two means of encouragement; street improvements and utility connections on the cheap are others.
The point: What benefits a community benefits everyone within it, even the old grouch or two who get surly about spending a dime to help anyone else.
That brings us to community cooperation.
USD 257 administrators and board members are beset practically every day by anxiety from knowing that Iola schools are not meeting their roles of providing the best environment and education they can for our children.
Board members tried a bond issue a couple of years ago that would have made district schools among the best in eastern Kansas. It failed miserably.
Why?
That’s a question that citizens should answer honestly, then find a way to overcome whatever the opposition is.
Increased taxes are, of course, a sticking point. Even so, the bond issue would have cost most taxpayers only a few dollars a month. More than likely, that alone killed the issue.
Some opponents railed about location, about children having to be bused, about putting all grades at one location, about a multitude of truly nitpicking things.
Keeping the schools in neighborhoods was a major concern … of a few.
Rather than jumping onto a soapbox and pointing to individual things that perturb, wouldn’t it be better for all — including about 1,200 kids who soon will be replacing adults in the workaday world — to hash out these concerns in a logical manner, find solutions and then work together?
As for taxes, that’s the admission price of living in a democracy — doing as one body what we can’t do individually: i.e., build and maintain streets, provide fire and police protection, educate children, etc., and they are only going to go up if our tax base goes down.
For emphasis about the necessity for good, up-to-date schools, an editorial in Monday’s Washington Post proclaimed: “Millions … decide where to rent or buy a home based on the quality of the local public schools.”
THIS COMMENTARY may seem steeped in naïveté.
But, sometimes simple and positive thinking carries the day, sidestepping the arrows of opposition and contempt.
Tracy Keagle is a sterling example of what one person can do when she (or he) believes enough in a project to give it their all and forge ahead against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Don’t you wonder what a few or dozens of folks could accomplish if they put their collective minds to the task — of findings a way to attract businesses to downtown, to increase our housing stock, to replace our patchwork schools with ones up to snuff … to make Allen County and all the towns within it a destination not only for visitors, but also new residents.
If we could get started in the next few months, it would make 2017 a banner year.
— Bob Johnson
