Letters: Skeptical about how boards, plans fit together

0

To the editor:

The Community Readiness Initiative (CRI) was a study conducted by invitation to the state to gain some understanding of what our local officials and others know about certain economic trends, and some demographics and county assets, among other points of interest.

The Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI) is the next phase in a process that will here shortly reveal itself to the reader.

The HCI came to us quickly via our redevelopment commission (RDC) as a means to have open roundtable discussions concerning the challenges our county faces; along with monies and education to help us face those challenges. Beforehand certain RDC members penned answers in essay form to five questions posed by HCI representatives.

What those answers reveal is that the HCI team (local representatives of the initiative) will become, in essence, a more active extension of our RDC, whose “members all of whom are volunteers, have developed contacts with national, state and regional networks and are working to improve communications and cooperation with Brown County boards” (HCI application) and will help facilitate a plan known as the Regional Opportunity Initiative (ROI).

The ROI is an 11-county-wide development plan funded in part by the Lilly Endowment and is a response to 21st Century economic requirements — which, translated for us, is considered to be a prescription for the dwindling integrity of our rural community, a trend that cannot “be reversed by growing the tax base” (HCI application) of our town and county. We must therefore accept this plan “for a healthy and vibrant future or pay the price” (HCI application).

Brown County’s part in the ROI is to further develop tourist/recreational capacities and to become a better host to light industry and entrepreneurship. Another intriguing part of the ROI plan is to establish an Applied Research Institute which “will consist of academia, industry, federal laboratories and government stakeholders committed to advancing technology and fostering talent in strategic sectors poised for growth” (ROI plan) located somewhere near Crane.

The degradation of a community takes insiders, like our Republican elected officials, as well as outsiders, who cannot care about the integrity of a community (because they are not embedded in it) and who see that degradation as little more than a business opportunity.

You cannot help a community by displacing it — for example, by working to usher in wealthier people to buy up more of our county property; or by trying to push a bad septic system deal. Furthermore, you cannot support the healing of a community by building a grand party city on a hill overlooking a town already embattled by conflicting visions for it. The Firecracker Hill development seems to be the only “pathway” project underway at the moment and is in line with what the local RDC hopes to achieve through the institutes of the HCI.

We are concerned that the Hometown Collaboration Initiative will only further convolute matters here, so we are highly skeptical of its “importance” as a remedy.

Let us explore solutions and opportunities for prosperity other than those particular to free market capitalism given to us in bad faith. In doing so, a stronger community will emerge — one that can define its own vision for the future for its own sake.

John Douglas, Nashville

Send letters to [email protected] by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks).{/em}

Letters are the opinions of the writer.

Letters must be signed by the author and include the writer’s town of residence and a contact number in case of questions. Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section.

Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point.

Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of “fact.”

No posts to display