Eye of the Storm
Weekly Update 9/10/2023 to 9/16/2023 #190
I can remember learning about the eye of the storm when I was in elementary school, and still to this day, when I hear of the next tropical storm brewing off shore, I think about that lesson. Before I explain, let me share some of my week serving as mayor of the best smalltown in America.
As part of our follow up with 22/23 Mayor’s Youth Council, one of the items mentioned was allowing members to participate in meetings. This past week, we saw our first couple of meetings allowing a member to join the Parks and Recreation board and Common Council. They don’t get to vote, but they do get a seat at the table to ask questions and share thoughts from a youth perspective. While both were quiet this week, I fully expect them to open up as they get comfortable interacting with different city representatives. As I do each year I look forward to seeing how much members grow over the course of this session.
This past week, after 10 months worth of work with 60 to 70 residents from our community, we were able to announce the Brookings Study findings with its 13 items. As to be expected based on our demographics, around 20% of the items are related to immigration. Some items are related to housing and how to help solve various pieces from quality to quantity. One item is about improving employee training with a partnership between Vincennes University, the Jackson County Learning Center, and area industry to focus on industrial maintenance training. It will be interesting to see who the partners will be as items start working towards reality. Thank you to everyone who has helped get to this point.
I guess it is time to break into the eye of the storm. Since I first learned about the calm that exists in a world of chaos, I have always thought about it. Growing up in Indiana my view of a storm has always been a tornado or a thunderstorm and the calm comes after the storm. To think that in a hurricane or tropical storm you get a calm in the middle of the storm before the other side hits seems so strange to me. Now, I have been talking about the eye of the storm because this week, I used it as a reference when during a meeting someone asked what big projects were in the works. I shared a few like the transfer station and upcoming sewer projects that have been needed and in the works for several years at this point. I talked about the coming road work over the next 18 to 24 months. Then as the conversation went on, I found several projects that most would consider big projects, but because I am in the eye of the city storm, if you will, I don’t always think of them as big projects. Not that they aren’t, but when you touch base on them each week, they don’t seem as big. This week, I also had a moment of when it rains it pours as one developer that I met with earlier this year called to share a possible project that he was working on here in Seymour. Then about an hour after that call, I exchanged texts with another developer about a completely different property and potential investors there. Then top it off with a meeting with a new developer who showed interest in a completely different area of Seymour. Will any of the three come to be? Who knows and only time will tell, but what I do know for sure is that from the calm in the middle of the storm, it is fun to see all the futures that could be created from working on my hometown and its future. I think I will leave you with a quote today from George Burns, "I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life."