Looking To The Future

A recent report was released to the State that indicates that Jefferson County is not ready to move into the future. While we are doing fine presently, largely due to the growth boom of the last couple of decades, we simply are not preparing for the future. I suppose that most of us knew that already. The only plan that we have had for any real progress in the last several years was the megasite and it was so poorly conceived and executed that it had absolutely no chance of doing anything but bankrupting our County. In fact, it wasn’t our plan, anyway, it was the plan of those that wanted to take advantage of our lack of planning and thought and they almost succeeded. So, we have had one terrible plan that was thwarted and other than that we have nothing. And it has been noticed. When I say that we fell, I mean that we fell drastically from a ranking of 20th currently to 64th out of 95 counties in momentum. We have not been planning for our future and that is evident in how we conduct ourselves as a government. We have a deficit of nearly $ 5 million dollars because we haven’t been planning for closure of our landfill. We have a collapsed roof at Jefferson County High School because we haven’t planned to up keep our flagship school. We closed our County pool because we did not plan for its upkeep or renovation over the years. There is no long-term plan to bring in business nor is there even a concept of what kind of business that we would like to attract. We are a community, within a community, within a community and there is no common identity. Until we can define who we are, we cannot direct where we are going. The report was sadly true. We are a good County that is destined to remain status quo-or worse-because we have no momentum. As others progress, we will become less and less attractive to those that reside here. Something has to kick start an upward trend in Jefferson County. We need something real and well thought out that benefits, not destroys, the positives that we have in our community. We need a plan for tomorrow and we need it yesterday. The time for paralysis through analysis is over. Building a Better Future is a wonderful concept but it is time for more than concepts in Jefferson County. You can’t gain momentum without taking that first step, unless you are sliding downhill.