Back to Basics

The following was trimmed down to fit the Iron County
Reporter's criteria for letters to the editor. Additional
comments follow.

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What Iron County needs today is to get back to the basics
because we are in a free fall that terminates in failure of the
community unless we take action starting today. And today
is possibly too late. Part of the solution requires a change
of heart of the population by grasping control of our local
governments and demanding performance by our politicians.
They’ve been running wild for quite some time now.

The two essentials that no community can ever get away
from are sufficient population and enough jobs to support
the needs of the people. At present the local numbers for
both have dropped below our capacity to provide for our
own needs. So we have inane decisions by government to
force people to pay for water and sewers they don’t use,
garbage they don’t put by the curb, and closing public
thoroughfares that fail.

Apparently we have a lot of housing that’s being abandoned.
A government entity needs to be charged with repopulating
the county and reusing those houses. A larger population
forms the basis for more sales of essentials and could
encourage manufacturing to come to Iron County. We need
to stop wasting time and money on frills like disk golf and
open mike nights. The county’s EDC has failed us like Nero
fiddling while Rome burned.

As a prelude to further elimination of wasteful municipal
governments through consolidation, put a stop to Iron River
City Hall employees working 82% of the hours everyone
else puts in while collecting 100% of the pay. We know that
governments traditionally operate very inefficiently. City hall
can be cut back to 50% of the hours and 50% pay without
any shortfall in the functioning of government. Money saved
would pay for the emergency repairs to roads.
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I've been told there's a lot of abandoned housing around Iron
County. In as much as governments end up owing it, there's
no reason those deemed to be habitable cannot be sold
under land contract with a $1 per month payment, plus taxes
and utilities with a contracted schedule of improvements over
the traditional 5 year land contract as a gateway to ownership.
At the five year point, the sale reverts to a traditional
mortgage. With a 5 year track record of making regular
payments and making improvements to a home, banks will
have no problem lending to the new owner regardless of their
prior financial record.


That should attract folks to move into the county. It would
solve the problems associated with abandoned (empty)
houses deteriorating, (see also the broken window theory)
while collecting utility payments and taxes that would help
local governments.

Right now, the abject laziness of our elected government
officials helps to drive that abandoned housing into slum
status. They, the elected officials, are awarded a position
of trust by the electors, and they're letting us down. It is
their professed function to do the their best for the public,
and to address each and every public need, not just the
ones that tweak their personal interest.

So darn it, get your lazy selves out of those chairs and do
something about it!

You have eyes!

You have ears!

You have brains!

Use them!

Bill Vajk