Another group with Best Intentions

Align Southern Indiana: ANOTHER Group

BEST OF LUCK!

Another community group. Working to pull leaders together. Interesting indeed. Maybe a little redundant but interesting nonetheless. 

Good Luck. I honestly hope it works. I really do. There is a major breakdown in a large vision for the benefit of all the communities for the items Align SI is working towards. And working to bring together all the community organizations with a common goal. Interesting. It could work, but baby steps is the way to go. 

LINK: Align SI working to unify organizations

But here is the problem. Without local elected leaders buying into this thing, it's success will be extremely limited.

Most of our city councilmen never leave their city nor care about what happens outside of it. County Council are too worried about money to have a vision. County Commissioners are either too beat down to continue or too busy trying to fix their county to pay attention. The Mayors are either too consumed with personal achievement trying to realize their vision or too proud (some would say stubborn) to work with neighbors.

The first time local community/organization leaders who are involved with this get threatened by those who are elected that don't like a plan, the organization/community leaders will back away. This is because they are scared of what might happen if they have a different opinion than their elected counterparts. They don't want to be on anyone's sh*tlist, so to speak. 

"What?!?" You say... "This really happens?"

Yes, this happens everyday. There is no healthy debate when it comes to local issues. If I'm wrong, please site an example...              Go ahead...               I'll wait...

There is no "I understand where you are coming from but... so let's move on and still be partners." Instead we have "I don't agree with you so I'm going to talk bad about you behind your back and never work with you again!  Until I need you."

A majority, not all, but a majority of our elected officials fit the description of what I stated above.

We are a small town area. Not as rural as we used to be but small town USA none the less. We are a people who are ruled by personal feelings that get them hurt when people don't agree with us. We inherently get our feelings hurt and struggle to separate personal feelings from non-personal decisions. We are afraid to say "Yes" in a tough situation or "No" in an even tougher one. But that's one of the reasons why "they" got elected from "we", to make the hard choices for us.

Disclaimer: ALL OF THE ABOVE STATEMENTS ARE SUBJECTIVE AND DO NOT APPLY TO EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL

Here's where I hope I'm wrong. If Align can pull this off, it will be a huge benefit to the community as a whole as long as they are inclusive to all and not exclusive to a few (which seems to be how they are starting out). Sincerely, congratulations on getting this off the ground and good luck!

To the elected officials in Southern Indiana:

Thank you putting for yourself out there to serve us. I challenge you to engage with Align Southern Indiana. I challenge you to have a positive impact on areas outside your district, town, city, or county. I challenge you openly debate and not get your feelings hurt when you are not agreed with. I challenge you to be humble when you are. I challenge you to be a team player. I challenge you to be OPEN MINDED.

To the local community/organization leaders in Southern Indiana:

Thank you for all you do for your cause. I challenge you to engage with Align Southern Indiana. I challenge you to have a positive impact on areas outside your scope of work. I challenge you openly debate and not get your feelings hurt when you are not agreed with. I challenge you to be humble when you are. I challenge you to be a team player. I challenge you to be OPEN MINDED. 

Stop GCCS Wasteful Spending:

Part of the Solution or Problem?

So I've been seeing the Stop GCCS Wasteful Spending facebook page.  Seems to have a lot of sponsored ads someone is paying for. 

As I read through that page, it is all SUBJECTIVE! Everything is based on opinions with very little facts. If these people, especially Alice Butler have such a passion, step UP TO THE PLATE ALREADY and run for School Board! 

Everyone has an opinion. I get that. And by all means, feel free to express it. But the way the hateful, fear mongering, spiteful, one sided unwilling to compromise bullheadedness and childish way they are going about getting the point across is, in my opinion, hurtful to their cause. Wait, people are banned from their page for having an opposing view? Nice. Isn't that cute? So they have a problem but don't want to hear other points of view or have anyone challenge them with facts.  

Don't get me wrong, when their (Stop GCCS Waste...) facebook first started, it was for good reason. A person or group had an opinion and need to organize to spread the word by sharing information.

But now, it seems they've taken a good cause and shaped it into something ugly: one sided, not really wanting to make positive change because they'd lose their "fame".

So SAD. Once the personal attacks started by "Stop GCCS" facebook page, it's been all down hill from there. Not only that, their supporters have picked up the personal attacks which, as everyone was taught in first grade knows, only prevents meaningful discussion from happening.  

Now they have taken to attacking Mayor Moore? Why? Because he found a solution they don't agree with? So he put out a video laying out a solution he supports and these people attack him for it. If he didn't get the word out, the same people would attack him because he's conspiring behind closed doors with the schools. Give me a break already.   

This kills me! I bet if you gave them a stack of $100 bills, they'd complain how it wouldn't fit in their pocket! 

Here's my thing. I'm all about people having a problem. I'm all about people whining and complaining about said problem.

What I'm not about is people C O N T I N U A L L Y complaining about a problem without being open to or recommending solutions. It even fires me up more when, not only do they not have a solution, but they refuse to work with those elected to decision making positions to create one.  

com·pro·mise

[ˈkämprəˌmīz]

NOUN

compromise

1. an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions:
   "an ability to listen to two sides in a dispute, and devise a compromise acceptable to both" 

The school board has the job of making the best decision for the school district's tax payers and children. JUST BECAUSE YOU DO NOT AGREE DOESN'T MAKE THEM WRONG - or corrupt - or unwilling to listen

If you truly feel they are, then put your money where your mouth is and RUN FOR THEIR SEAT! 

No matter what either side does at this point, the 2 schools are closing. PERIOD. The school board felt that was the best choice to make. PERIOD. 

Now, those people who are only making personal attacks while not working towards a solution can either:

1. support the new school and kids have a place downtown
2. not support and by default support the kids going on a 2 min bus ride to other schools.

Those are the solutions. PERIOD. Pick one and let's move on to making the future for our community brighter. 

Reflections

What IS and what COULD be...

This past weekend was beautiful! So we spent a good part of Saturday at the Greenway. Great views. Flowers along the path. Wildlife could be heard in the breeze. Just an overall good day.  Nothing exciting happened but after, I reflected on all I had seen... What a nice addition to the community. While we rode our bikes, EVERY SIGNLE PERSON that passed us at least said "Hello". 

There were men. There were women. There were children. There were white people. There were black people. There were people from of every color in-between. There were young people. There were old people. There were single people. There were married people. There were walkers holding hands. There were runners keeping pace. There were hardcore bikers clicking away the miles. There were dads teaching their kids how to ride on the path. 

My point is this...

Nowhere else in our community is there such a diverse mix of people who can come together and take advantage of an asset while being so friendly. 

Now, what's next?

Who is going to lead the way to take the next big step? Jeffersonville stepped up with the Walking Bridge and Big 4 Station. Nobody believed it was worth the investment, but look at how it has transformed Jeffersonville. The Ogle Foundation has dedicated untold amounts of money to projects that have helped transform our community as has the Horseshoe Foundation and Community Foundation. Thank you! 

With so much on the horizon for our area, now is not the time to say "That will never work." Now is the time to believe in our future and figure out a way to make it work. Our local cities, towns, and counties have a vision of how they want their community to grow. But they cannot and should not do it alone. 

Partnerships between government and investors can (and maybe should) be the way forward. While investors in a project to have the freedom to do as they want with their project, fitting the vision of a community should be part of the consideration. And while local government should be welcomed to the table, they have to be realistic in their expectations by not holding investors to such high demands that it kills projects. But killing a project that is allowed legally is not the role of government. 

A great example of a recent partnership can be seen in this news piece from July 26th: Click here 

While this developer could have went on to build this neighborhood without input, they recognized the city would like to have a park there, took initiative to approach the city (not the city to the developer) and come up with a mutual beneficial plan. 

Hats off to Mayor Moore and Premier Homes for coming together. This is a great example of what can happen when government and private investor both know their place, don't over step, and let investment happen.

But I digress

Let's be real here. Government does not know how to run a business. Government does not know how to spend your money better than you.

Government's job is to         (....wait for it......say it with me......)          GOVERN.

However, working together with someone who does know how to spend money and run a business to be sure the interests of the community are met is their place. Demanding frivolous investment and spending for pipedreams that prevents a return on investment by private business is NOT where Government should operate. Unfortunately, that's were they operate most of the time without realizing it.

Local government is the worst of all because they truly don't know what they don't know and (at least some of them) let ego's get in the way of understanding that. At least at the state and federal level they have resources available to them to be educated on a topic. Locally, they just go on their merry little way because "I was elected as (insert any random governing office)!" 

Time for some of our local elected officials to wake up understand they cannot govern on principle (some would say PRIDE) alone. Wisdom has to have a place in the equation. Asking someone who is smarter than you about something you know little about is a good trait in a leader.