Long Time No Speak

I apologize for not posting in a few days. There have been many home issues to deal with. I want to say a special thank you to Mary who has continued her support of seeing both sides of an issue. We sometimes tend to forget that living in the perfect society on earth is unattainable. We will always have issues to deal with in our everyday lives. It is how we choose to confront those challenges that sets us apart.
In the recent months I have listened to many people talking about how to save money. "Cut back on this and do without that", are common in this current economic climate. The one thing that I have not heard is, "How can we bring money in?".
Cutting spending will only bring us so far. We cannot rely on savings to bring this city into the future. Look at any city in the world and you will see their method of survival. You have to have revenue to make ends meet. Look around town...
There are no restaurants in this "city". There are no sustainable businesses (I am not talking about port businesses) such as retail or other. Luckily we have the Hot Springs Resort. I would love to see us thrive as a city. However, many people want our city to stay as a suburb. You cannot have it both ways. Suburbs are part of a large city. They have revenue derived from business.
We need to focus our efforts to the task at hand. That task is not to count every penny. I am a huge supporter of following government spending. We need to make sure that the books are in order. Yet, there seems to be a huge disparage between where citizens are looking. In researching labor in the last month I have seen interesting things.
Some residents have been focusing on the amount of money paid to the city maintenance staff. I find this odd considering that our city planner accrued close to 80 HOURS of overtime last month. That must have been a lot of planning. Although, in checking further I have heard (yes, the almighty hearsay) that most of this time was spent on a berm overlooking a dredging project. This project was not costing the city anything at the time. I understand that some oversight is necessary but I cannot believe that someone who is a part-time employee can accrue that many hours.
The worst part of this scenario is the fact that the city council approved the amount of $40,000 to be given to the individual who was in charge of the project. This is hard to swallow when no contract was made in advance. This person only wanted the debris that was removed as payment. How are we to move forward when the council is taking steps in the wrong direction?
I am trying very hard not to be negative but all I can say at this point is.....