Shift back to more power locally

 

 

One of our main platform points is that we’d push for a return to much more power being in the hands of local people in local communities – like it was in the “old days.” This means, basically, that what goes on in a local town council meeting would carry as much weight, if not more, than what goes on in the ‘Halls of Congress.’

 

With this paradigm, whoever became president would have to have a good understanding of the rudimentary workings of town government. I do. For instance, when I worked for the Sandusky Register newspaper in Northwest, Ohio, back in the early ‘80s, I was assigned to a Bureau Office to cover all aspects of Huron, Ohio (pop. 7,000). One of these aspects was “town government.”

 

For instance for the better part of two years, I was at practically every town council meeting. They were meetings where a gamut of things was discussed. Things like, to name just a few: significant rate hikes for a new water treatment system that the EPA had mandated because Huron was on Lake Erie; proposed police salary raises; the pros and cons of a proposed town road bypass to divert some summer vacation traffic; a major urban renewal project…

 

One of the many articles I wrote about the latter project is displayed below. Interestingly enough, years later my political platform would call for almost across-the-board downtown revitalization projects in America, so that the now decaying (or in some towns almost dead) downtowns, make dramatic comebacks through downtown revitalization/urban renewal projects, and such. This was once an absolute key to, not only the financial health of a town, but also community building in a town. And it seems, the way things lined up for me with the reporting, I was already getting an education on some of the various dynamics (industrial development revenue bonds, contingent timetables for land development, the strategies for attracting businesses to the project, etc…) of making that happen back then.

 

Also, for more on our stance on downtown revitalization…