What we need
Phil Dillon
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
A DECEMBER poll revealed that 70 percent of Emporians don’t believe the city is better off now than it was a year ago.
Some say that the solution to our problems is a tax revolt.
What we really need, though, is cultural and economic revival!
We face some hard realities. While our unemployment rate is low (4.5 percent), our median household income lags far behind most Kansas’ municipalities. Our individual poverty rate (17.9 percent) is 8 percent higher than the Kansas average. A significant number of rental properties (Emporia’s rental rate is a staggering 46 percent) within the heart of the city’s revitalization target are decaying while a few profit and livability codes aren’t actively enforced. Downtown business development struggles while too much focus is given to “big box” commercial development west of the city. Companies offering good paying jobs are leaving Emporia. Hispanics and other minorities comprise at least half of the student body of our secondary schools. Unfortunately, less than 10 percent of these vital communities go on to attend college.
We must reverse these, and other alarming trends, if Emporia is to thrive in the 21st century. We must support education and bring good-paying 21st-century jobs to Emporia: jobs and careers in bio-science, information technology, and the small, nimble companies that have become America’s economic growth engine. We must make Emporia attractive to a new breed of entrepreneurs, committed to their community. We must bring more Emporians, particularly minorities, into the ownership society. We must invest in and revitalize downtown Emporia, bringing business, the university, and the community into a vital partnership for change.
This will come only when we share community, seize new opportunities and accept the responsibility to re-shape the future of this great city.
As a candidate for city commission, I’m committed to those three great ideals!