Author's Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author's alone and do not represent the views of the City of Elizabethton administration or City Council.
As many of you know, the City of Elizabethton is faced with a dilemma. The Minnesota Twins are requesting a large amount of money be spent to improve the facilities where the Elizabethton Twins play – Joe O'Brien Field. Because of the amount of money that would have to be spent, this puts our elected and appointed officials in a difficult position. Do we spend the money on the Twins facilities and forgo some other improvements for yet another year or spend the money on other community facilities and projects that desperately need to be completed and risk losing the Twins to another community? I vote for the former.
Many times we hear government must be run like a business, yet here is a prime example of why a local government cannot be run like a business. The Elizabethton Twins provide more to this community than monetary or economic return alone. The Twins only return about $10,000 per year to the City's General Fund coffers and provide minimal amounts in the form of economic impact, yet the Elizabethton Twins provide something for the entire community to rally around. When we see the Elizabethton Twins featured on the news we are proud to be from Elizabethton. When the Twins yet again win the Appalachian League Championship we are sure to tell others that our hometown team is the most winniest team in the nation. This team fosters much community pride so that we can say we're proud to be from Elizabethton.
The Twins also serve as a destination for our community. You wouldn't believe the number of people who travel from Minnesota or other parts of the county just to sit in a small stadium and watch a good game of baseball. Dedicated baseball fans will travel to watch a game. Using a standard tourism model, we likely attract people from 45 minutes to an hour away from Elizabethton per game to come and watch a game. These are people who may not of otherwise drove to Elizabethton. And, it's likely, they will get gas, eat at one of our restaurants, or just grab a bottle of water from a convenience store while they're here (this is where the small economic impact comes in).
While the Twins alone may not drive tourism in Elizabethton, they do serve as just one more thing to do while you’re visiting, just like the golf course does. Standing alone neither entity may lure people to our community, but when paired with other activities it become a reason to visit. Having these multiple different tourism assets serves as the foundation to a tourism driven economy.
These are many different perspectives both for and against investing in the Twins stadium. But no matter how you feel, be sure to let your elected representatives know! This is a difficult decision for them to make and the more input they have, the easier it will be for them to make the decision that the community supports. Let's talk about it!
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
The Need for a Comprehensive Plan
Urban planning is centralized on one major tenant – preparing for and helping communities avoid problems. And just like you, city planners must think ahead to the future and calculate what types of problems may occur if different decisions are made. One of the most common ways of doing this is adopting what is called a comprehensive plan.
Comprehensive plans are an important component to running a city and keeping it moving forward. The comprehensive plan serves as the community’s guide to moving the community into the future. Imagine if you built a house without blueprints. We know we need a foundation, but don’t know what type of material to use because we don’t know if the house will have one, two, or three stories. Do we put in a basement, crawlspace, slab, or build the house on stilts? Without that good foundation the rest of the house may be a waste.
The comprehensive plan provides us with the blueprints of how to build the city over the next 10-20 years. Sure, circumstances may change, funding may decrease, or a new major employer may come into the community causing a change in the plan, but this would be no different than asking a contractor to move a wall a few feet or add an additional closet to your blueprint. Tweaks can easily be made along the way. Even with the changes made, in the end you still have a well-laid out and constructed house that thought was put into and wasn’t simply pieced together.
Comprehensive planning also impacts many elements of our community. This type of planning incorporates areas such as historic preservation planning, economic development planning, tourism planning, and land use planning. This encourages an interdisciplinary approach to ensure that all of the different elements of a community are completing one another. Maybe economic development planning has identified we need more business land. The land use planning can then address where new business land can be identified and ultimately rezoning property to create more business land in the community.
Ultimately, a comprehensive plan gets the community to a place they desire to be. The key component in all of this is you, our citizens. Part of our job as appointed officials is to provide you with a community and city services that you desire to have. As we start looking at developing the first components of a comprehensive plan this summer, I encourage you to participate at every opportunity you can. Your input is vital to ensure the house we build is the house this community desires.
Comprehensive plans are an important component to running a city and keeping it moving forward. The comprehensive plan serves as the community’s guide to moving the community into the future. Imagine if you built a house without blueprints. We know we need a foundation, but don’t know what type of material to use because we don’t know if the house will have one, two, or three stories. Do we put in a basement, crawlspace, slab, or build the house on stilts? Without that good foundation the rest of the house may be a waste.
The comprehensive plan provides us with the blueprints of how to build the city over the next 10-20 years. Sure, circumstances may change, funding may decrease, or a new major employer may come into the community causing a change in the plan, but this would be no different than asking a contractor to move a wall a few feet or add an additional closet to your blueprint. Tweaks can easily be made along the way. Even with the changes made, in the end you still have a well-laid out and constructed house that thought was put into and wasn’t simply pieced together.
Comprehensive planning also impacts many elements of our community. This type of planning incorporates areas such as historic preservation planning, economic development planning, tourism planning, and land use planning. This encourages an interdisciplinary approach to ensure that all of the different elements of a community are completing one another. Maybe economic development planning has identified we need more business land. The land use planning can then address where new business land can be identified and ultimately rezoning property to create more business land in the community.
Ultimately, a comprehensive plan gets the community to a place they desire to be. The key component in all of this is you, our citizens. Part of our job as appointed officials is to provide you with a community and city services that you desire to have. As we start looking at developing the first components of a comprehensive plan this summer, I encourage you to participate at every opportunity you can. Your input is vital to ensure the house we build is the house this community desires.
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