Quality of life
Mike Mercer
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
WHILE ATTENDING THE open budget meetings put on by the city and county government, the term “quality of life” was brought up.
The question I asked was if they could compare their projected expenses to their projected revenues at the Municipal Golf Course. Of course they came up with some figures, but “quality of life” came up.
With the city, state and country getting pounded by so many negative forces at once — housing crisis, tight credit conditions, elevated energy prices, unemployment rising and our financial markets under considerable stress, just to name a few — plus with us revamping our personal budget to cover things like two kids starting college, one kid still in high school and trying to help out our eldest son and my granddaughter, “quality of life” has a whole different definition.
To me it means providing my family with the necessities of life to the best of my abilities. It would be nice if our elected officials would see “quality of life” as street and sidewalk repair (city wide), infrastructure, water rates that are reasonable, emergency, police and fire services — you know the services that a city full of taxpayers want and need.
It is possible that by “quality of life” you mean it is a good recruiting tool to attract new businesses and new jobs, but I am not sure. If you do, could you please explain it that way? There are plenty of people in Emporia including myself that could have possibly mistaken “quality of life” with “way of life.”
This is just another example that the lack of communications between our city officials and the public, needs to be fixed. Breakdown in communications is responsible for many quality of life issues.
This is exactly why, as I said in 2007, that we need an average guy on the City Commission. We need a diversity of elected or appointed members on community boards, councils, commissions, as well as government staff. We also need to demonstrate that government is representative of and responsive to our citizens.
Voting is considered a good indicator of overall “quality of life.” Last election, 23 percent of the people voted, what does that say?
methusla (anonymous) says...
Mike Mercer;
How would you feel about having a City Council form of government instead of a City Manager, City Commission form of government ?
In a City Council form of government the City would be divided into, oh lets say six different districts and each district would elect or appoint an average guy or lady to act as Councilman or Councilwoman on behalf of their district with the power to vote on improvements, expenditures, what is needed or what is not needed, etc., no real need for a City Manager, just a Mayor elected by the Citys' citizens in a general City election to mediate City Council meetings and possibly cast a tie-breaking vote.
I have advocated this form of local government in the past and still believe that it is the only fair and impartial form of local government to have.
September 24, 2008 at 2:57 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Summer_Breeze (anonymous) says...
Methusla, I urge you to take a look at how well the City Council/Strong Mayor form of government worked for the City of Topeka--NOT! LOL
September 25, 2008 at 9:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )