The only thing the designation of City will bring you is more Politicians, which brings more gridlock, political infighting and more waste of tax dollars. You are doing quite fine with your small City Council, Council President and smaller government. You already have things that Jeffersonville would love to have, better infrastructure, amenities (public golf course, fine variety of retail stores and dining) lower taxes and reasonable sewer bills.
Now if you want petty bickering between politicians, wasting tax dollars by one office suing the other, leaking e-mails from office to office about each other, money wasted and higher taxes then maybe you should become a City. Maybe even a 2nd Class City like Jeff recently attained by annexing in unwilling citizens.
What does 2nd Class city status get you ?? Well in Jeff's case you get a terrible traffic patterns and road infrastructure, a dead downtown area, no movie theaters, no public golf course. No Lowes, no Best Buy , no Dillards but on the positive side Jeff does have 27 pizza places, 18 banks (to spend your money elsewhere), higher property taxes, outrageous sewer bills and as reminder of our outstanding sewer system a permeating stench emanating from our sewer improvements as you enter the City.....Aaah the privileges of a 2nd class City...
Clarksville Be Smart, Stay A Town !!!
HT...The many advantages Clarksville has over Jeff are in large measure due to the vision and planning of one person. This same person also was instrumental in developing the Greenway. More recently, he brought in investors for the Colgate plant with a beneficial plan. (Stalled in the latter stages of the economic downturn but likely to revive.) And the 'wisdom' of the current Town leadership just fired him. BRILLIANT!!!!
ReplyDeleteAgreed G, Dickman was very influential in the progress and development of C-ville. I would assume just another instance of politics raising it's ugly head.
ReplyDeleteWe all should be thankful for Dickman's vision, because we Jeffersonvillians have a place close where we can go for the necessities (other than pizza) and spend our money.
HT you are so wrong. There is more to Jeffersonville than just Pizza places. I have heard that we are getting ready to open a 2nd Taco Bell as well.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note. I remember attending a meeting about 20 years ago when I was really too young to care. This meeting was about whether or not we should allow the Caesars Boat to locate in Jeffersonville. Local auctioneer Richard Crum gave one of the best presentations I had ever heard. He was just coming off throat surgery so he could barely talk but what he said I remember to this day. He ended his talk by saying "20 years ago we had a college in downtown Jeff. They wanted more space and wanted the city to step up and help. The common sentiment at the time was that we did not need those hippies in Jeffersonville, let them move. Here we are 20 years later and I cannot even buy a men's dress shirt in Jeffersonville." At the time Bacons had just moved to Clarksville. It was pretty moving. I think Goliath is right about Mr. Dickman and I am not sure that his vision or the lack of vision in Jeff can be blamed on whether one is a city and one is a town. I think vision is vision. Some places allow people that have it to prosper and some do not.
Brian Coffman
Don't even get me started on "the boat", let alone Jeffersonville's failure to keep IUS...Just think what either one of those ventures in and of themselves would have meant to the city. Sigh
ReplyDeleteJules