How our towns move forward
Matt Pearl
I recently spoke with city officials in Union Star about the unfortunate mud road incident that fed a social media frenzy. Their remarks were helpful in understanding the problems with the streets of the city.
We can use the incident as an anchor point to discuss what the role of government ought to be, particularly in our money-stretched small towns.
Running a city is not easy. I do not live within the city limits of any community, so I possess the perfect scapegoat not to run for the often thankless tasks of serving on a city council.
That said, I feel it is a citizen’s duty to hold his or her government accountable, and the only ways I know to do that are either to address your mayor and representing aldermen, or to run and serve a term on your local town board.
The most disturbing thing I heard in my discussion with Union Star Mayor David Kariker was that the citizens of the town had been notified numerous times of the city’s intent to embark upon a road project — one which would see an initial step of milling the existing roads to create crowned, draining road bed for future improvements.
Citizens were invited to speak out on the issue, and the council would hear their petitions. Kariker noted that few came forward to voice opinions, and none attended several meetings when street repairs were discussed.
I think that at times a community of Union Star’s size views itself unfairly. For years, the town has fought the stigma that small equals inferior.
In our phone conversation, Kariker and I shared our dreamers’ hopes for curbs and asphalt-paved streets. But the money isn’t there.
And I guess it may never be. The fact, however, that some ideas seem so big and far-fetched that citizens won’t even invest their imaginations makes me irritated.
How much money does it cost to dream? Haven’t a lot of wonderful things begun with big dreams from small people?
How did your town begin? Was it a large, funded, taxed, corporate settlement project? No. It was a handful of people — often just one family — that settled in a western territory with no guarantee of success, or even survival.
OK, next question: How will your town continue? Will it do so by its citizens accepting a downgrade in infrastructure without challenging one another to work toward something better?
Now let’s ask ourselves which direction we’re all moving. What have you ever seen that began as dirt, eventually was paved, and then went back to dirt? Civilization dares us to pave it, and to keep it paved. To build it, then to maintain it.
You can get as mad at your mayor and council as you want, folks, but until 437 people in Union Star proper decide that a decaying town on a mud road is unacceptable, you governmental representatives can’t help you. You can blame any alderman you choose, but it won’t change the fact that dozens of households ignored the city’s street plan for months — then hit the roof when a few inches of rain made a mess of everything.
Want to see positive change? Get to the next meeting before the rains fall again —instead of complaining afterward.
