Editor,

Relating to or given to altruism: having or showing an unselfish concern for the welfare of others.

This is what I expect from my elected officials. I expect this concern would apply to each and everyone of us equally.

How very naive I am. An idealist, I guess.

However, I was taught this concept every year I attended public schools. Weren’t you? What happened?

We have group after group coming to us with their hand out. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Teachers, police, business owners, sewer boards, foundations and on and on.

I have a question, how many times have any of these groups asked you how you are? Ever?

Well, I don’t think we’re doing very well. Young people, our children and grandchildren, are dying from drugs. The school system is ranked in the bottom half of Indiana schools. We have young people with babies working for $12 an hour in our only economic opportunity: tourism. Two hundred people a day are being fed from our community kitchen. Some days it’s as high as 250.

I need leaders that are going to set goals and priorities for all of us.

I want trades taught in our schools to students who are not planning to attend college. I want small business owners to start working students and teaching these kids trades. Plumbers, electricians, drywallers, painters, on and on. Community engagement.

I want the elected officials to start having conversations about us, all of us. Not one group over another.

Sherrie Mitchell

Morgantown