Chronicle Editorial

Investing in your community is your best investment
     The financial market is a rough one to break into. Stocks, bonds, yields, dividends, rates of return, interest rates, etc., can all sound Greek to the average person who works a fulltime job. With the soul goal to provide the necessities for a family, there can be very little time to devote to researching stock and bond prices with the scrutiny it takes to be a Wall Street savant.
     Put together with the financial market’s unpredictable nature and the constant attention required to make a return on the large sums of money invested, it can be very hard for the average person to make investments that secure their future.
     However, there is one investment you can always make that ensures not only your future, but your children’s, your friends’ and your community’s.
     Invest in your community.
     An investment in your community is an assurance of a future for yourself, whether it be in the form of time, services, money or merely attending a council, school board or organizational meeting, there is no lucrative market than your community.
     Later this month, the Iowa Living Roadways 2016 Steering Committee will present a feasibility plan regarding the project proposed in the plans written about in this issue. Some of these plans include updating and constructing new sidewalks, resurfacing streets and crosswalks, constructing better trail systems and establishing parks.
     While a city’s tax dollars go towards maintaining current infrastructure, tight budgets over the last decade have limited just what a city can do in terms of bringing change structurally, with changes in budgets coming mostly from shared services. The country’s aging infrastructure is taking most of those tax dollars to up keeping the status quo.
     In comes Iowa’s Living Roadways Project.
     Not many states across the country offer the same service provided through the Department of Transportation and Iowa State University. The state and the university practically provide all of the resources to interested communities in developing plans and leading meetings — the only outside ingredient needed is community input and later, funding.
     Franklin County Economic Development is constantly working to attract businesses and residents to individual communities, who are not only from Iowa, but from other states as well. An influx of people to your community increases the tax dollars that a city can use for repairs, and with enough of those dollars, can bring new projects into the community. More people also means more customers for local businesses.
     More customers also means that the community is attractive to outside businesses and entrepreneurs in the community.
     More businesses, more customers, more people ensures that schools continue to receive funding, that a main street flourishes, that neighbors continue to greet each other.
     Whether you are a volunteer, a donor, a listener or just a tax payer, your involvement in your community is an investment. It raises your property value if you’re interested in finances, and raises your level of well being in a thriving community.
     Whatever the price for these plans at the end of the month, they deserve serious consideration from businesses and the community.
     All investments require risks. There’s the risk abroad that you cannot control, but then there’s the risk in your own backyard, that you can ensure comes to fruition.