Reorganization…
Posted by elucky9 on July 11, 2008
Something I noticed while in town…
There are cities and towns all across our nation that get superb ratings. So good, they’re ranked in the top places to live. Now tell me this: Where would Rensselaer, IN rank? You don’t think anywhere in Indiana could rank? False. Look it up. I dare you. Well, while in town I noticed there was construction in the Pizza Hut area. Apparently there is yet another bank coming to town. Whooooop-deeee-doooo! Why!! Folks, we all know Rensselaer could use better things than another flippin’ bank. And didn’t we get a new bank recently on Drexel? That’s new enough. Why can’t we put in something useful? An Applebee’s so we’re not draining our funds at *cough* Rico’s? That place is a flat out joke of a bar ‘n’ grill. I’m spending more for a low quality meal than I would buying the overpriced generic food at County Market. I’m not ranting because I think Rensselaer is a horrible place to live. I’m ranting because Rensselaer has great potential, but you have city officials who sit on there hands the whole time they’re in office. Didn’t we have an election? To ‘Change Rensselaer?’ What happened?? My theory is people got scared of that first word: change. Is it so scary? Then you had those “buzzers” in the paper questioning change. “I love Rensselaer. What’s there to change?” Idiot! Look around! You don’t see that nth bank coming to town? Wow, we have a theater!! Oh wait…I’ll still go out of town to see a movie because I like to have feeling in my body from sitting for 2 hours. Kudos for the Ritz opening though. That place is cool. Are our parks ever going to improve? How many years has that project on Melville been simmering? It’s finally been executed because the federal funding was getting ready to be pulled? Hey, how long did we have that funding anyway? And so on and so forth. Who is seriously running the city? Sure, Airhood was great, but your time runs down sometime. His ran down years ago, but there’s that change factor again. Reorganize this place. Reorganize the structure. Either put a new mayor in (one that doesn’t run for Independent) or wipe out the whole mayor concept all together. Reorganize. Throw in a town council, hire a town manager, elect a clerk-treasurer, and run with it. Gain “Town” status rather than “City” and let Rensselaer grow. “Town has a bad stigma to it. It makes us sound run down.” Well look around! You’re half way there. Drive from Columbia Park to Martin’s on Elm Street. If we reorganized, we could revamp everything else: our development staff…put bigger and better projects in the town. Our parks staff, maintain and develop our parks. Public works and Wastewater Treatment? Any of the this sticking? I love Rensselaer. Everyone’s story: “I grew up there and now have a family of my own.” I’ve seen other places though. This town has great potential. Other towns that were around 5, 10, 15 years ago had “town” status. 15 years ago, a town in Indiana had barely 100 employees working for it. Today, there’s over 360(something) employees. It’s noted to have a huge growth over those years. There’s a tremendously great leadership team there. Rensselaer’s got that some pontential. Anywhere does, we just need that right leadership team. After the years of living in Rensselaer, I want to be able to be proud of where I live. Take care, Rensselaer. ‘Til next time…
Paz,
E
