The easiest thing to do is criticize the county commissioners for our
financial quagmire. The habits of dipping into restricted funds and
spending money we don’t have are inexcusable.
Beyond a major hike in property taxes, citizens should be upset. Poor financial management is unacceptable.
We can
fuss. And we can cuss, but neither will
solve the crisis. The answers will be
found in a forward-thinking approach, a definitive action plan and
determination. Leadership is the key. I remember what Lee Iacocca said when he took
over the Chrysler Corporation, which was drowning in a sea of red ink.
Iacocca
explained that if your objective is to drain the swamp and you are up to your
hips in alligators, you must do this. Write
down the 10 things you absolutely must do, and everything else has to wait. I know the drill all too well. If you own and operate a business, you know
about those snapping gators, too.
The
newspaper you are holding in your hands is today’s news, but it also represents
significant history, going back to 1865.
Your newspaper is the oldest continually operated business in Wayne
County. It’s been through wars, the
Great Depression and our recent Great Recession. The
Press-Sentinel is a testament to the will to survive. Other businesses in our community can say the
same.
We know what
happened a decade ago. Wall Street all
but collapsed. The American dream became a nightmare. People realized their nest eggs were suddenly
rotten. And your newspaper saw many of
its biggest advertisers evaporate.
Several
automobile dealerships, including Ford, Buick, GMC, Pontiac, Chrysler, Dodge
and Jeep, went away. Some of our biggest
customers shuttered before the financial turbulence. Do you remember Winn-Dixie,
Kroger, Pantry Pride, Pic ‘N’ Save and IGA?
I do, and I remember the seven full pages of grocery advertising that
left, too. Kmart was a major customer,
and now it’s gone.
In recent
months, the Tariff Wars dropped bombs on West Walnut Street. With fewer U.S. newsprint mills, we must
depend on paper from Canadian sources.
In the past several months, we have been smacked with a tariff on
newsprint. Second to payroll, newsprint
is our largest expense. Tariffs might
not have topped out yet.
The Rev. Charles Swindoll said that life is 10 percent what happens to
you and 90 percent how you react. As they
say, “It is what it is.” In our
business, that’s the way we look at the 10 percent. So much is out of our control. That’s why we focus on the 90 percent of what
we can do to navigate through crisis after crisis. I have always believed in the adage “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Your newspaper has a 153-year history
of survival. While some doors closed,
other windows opened. We are grateful to
our readers and advertisers for your support.
Our promise is to reward your loyalty with information you need and deserve to know.
Now back to
the county crisis.
As citizens
and taxpayers, we need and deserve
more explanation of how this happened.
That’s the “it-is-what-it-is” 10 percent, which calls for intense
scrutiny. I was not at Monday night’s
meeting, but ample reports say it was raucous.
People are mad and rightly so.
The past cannot be changed, but the future can and must be changed.
Taxpayers should
be vocal. Silence—on either side—of this
controversy isn’t an option. We need to
know, in specific terms, the county’s
90-percent reaction plan to solve this ugly financial crisis.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
