My Dream for Independence County

As you read this article, it will be the Wednesday after the sales tax vote for economic development.  As I write this, I am contemplating the two outcomes and questions arise as to what both of them will mean for our community.  I do not believe that excitement would describe my thoughts if this were to pass would be accurate.  Nor would worried be my thoughts if it were to have failed.  Both of those are very temporary while the issues we face will take a little while to fix.  While I write this, I believe this tax will pass because I think the people of Independence County will have cast a vote for themselves, in the belief that they, as a group of people, can do more and do something about the economic situation that they find themselves in.  While I am an optimist, and will frame my article as such, I believe that we face some challenges going forward.  I will now dispense with what I believe we should do, can do, and hope to do post December 9^th.

I have a dream that as a county, we can come together regardless of our cultural identities, affiliations, or social circles and address the problems that we have.  When we, as a community, believe as a whole that we can do more good together than we can apart, our success will begin, and it will be difficult to stop.  I have a dream that as a community, this tax will give us a tool to use that will make our economic picture much more attractive, but that as a community we can start to look at other things that need attention and work from us as well.  I believe those issues to be substance abuse in our children, poverty in our working population, and apathy with all those in between.  I believe that when we as leaders and concerned citizens of Independence County realize all that we have in front of us, that as a collective, we can accomplish a great and many things.  You see, all these issues pertain to economic development, and while this vote and subsequent tax is related directly to jobs, these other issues remain and we can not sit idly by while areas of our county are deprived, while people have struggles, and our community still hurts.  Our future was given a significant lift by the passage of this vote, and it begins a new chapter in the legacy of Independence County of which I believe one day we can all be proud.  But we should ask ourselves is this the end or rather a beginning?

I have a dream that we, as residents of Independence County, will start on this journey of  revitalization by which we will see growth all across the county as a result of our vote, by which, we will have tools that will benefit everyone in our area.  I have a dream that ten years from now we will look back on this effort and consider it to be a time and a place by which everyone in this community put aside whatever differences were present, whatever resentments that we harbored, and brought to the forefront of our minds the concern of everyone else in Independence County and said that never again would they let their community get to be in that shape again.  I have a dream that we will all work on issues that share a common good and share a common fate, and those are of economic well being for ours and our posterity.

I have a dream that this effort will be just the beginning in a period of change that we will see in our community that will transfer itself to our youth, and those who genuinely hold the key to future’s door and that they will use with it a passion and a care that they saw in their parents and grandparents and was evident in their action they took to take care of their home, their community, and that of their friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens.  I have a dream that the children of Independence County will have learned a lesson in how a community who collectively became apathetic to important issues collectively became passionate again.  That when the children of Independence County look at this in their years to come, realize and will find true, that people can and will change, and all it takes is a collective effort and that the saying “no man is an island” is true.  They will look back and say that we, the people of Independence County, took steps to secure our future, and for that, they will be thankful for more reasons than can be explained.

I have a dream that does not end with what has just been enumerated in this article, but continues on a path and direction that our youth will set for us in the future.  Our dreams become realities when we take steps to see that they happen, and the only difference between dreamers and visionaries is the passion by which visionaries desire to get things done.  My dream has a lot of visionaries in it but in reality, it is no dream at all.  We have some very passionate people right here in front of us.  For our dreams to become realities, they just have to learn what passion looks like and means again.