OK, let’s hear your ideas about how to improve Rockford
12 comments May 15th, 2008
The posting I did about who might run for mayor of Rockford got me to thinking. Yes, I got some sarcastic comments, which is fine. I enjoy coming up with halfway funny responses.
But what if we go in another direction? What if we use this post as a forum to come up with serious solutions to what we see as Rockford’s and the region’s problems?
See, I’ve lived here all my life, and for all my adult years I’ve heard complaints about this, complaints about that, conspiracy theories galore about what “they” are doing at City Hall or the courthouse or the School board to shaft the taxpayers.
These are mostly fact-free observations and urban falsehoods like, “We voted against the MetroCentre and they built it anyway.” The facts are: Voters rejected a property tax increase to build a civic center in the mid–1960s. In the 1970s, the legislture passed a bill to fund civic centers with taxes from racetrack winnings. So, the MetroCentre was built with racetrack tax money, not our property taxes.
I could go on. And on. And on, exploding myth after myth. But I’ve done it so many times, frankly, I’m bored trying to explain things to people who have no intention of listening to me.
All I’ve heard for 40 years on local talk radio is an endless series of paranoid rants. I often think that if someone thinking about moving to Rockford listened to the people who were born here, he’d turn his car around and get out of town at 80 mph.
So, let’s hear it, Rockfordians. Let’s turn the page. Give me some positive ideas for the future, with as many details as you can provide about how the job should get done.
