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Mayor's Row.....by Ned Mitchell
Jack Shultz is a well known author, motivational speaker, successful businessman and as far as I know still an Illinois resident from the Effingham area. Shultz wrote the well known book "Boomtown USA" in which he outlines seven and one half steps for small communities to become successful. I have read this book once and am now reading it for the second time as we continue to make progress in Sesser. I have attended one lecture at which Shultz was the featured speaker. He is a dynamic speaker and one can tell from listening to him that his heart is in the right place when it comes to economic development matters. If you have not read this book and are interested in how things can happen in small communities, I would suggest you check it out at your local library and see for yourself what it takes to be successful in small towns.
It was interesting for me last week to read about Jack Shultz and his attempts to meet with that great reformer/unreformer governor we have running this state. Governor Blagojevich was on a state wide tour promoting his newest fantasy called the Gross Receipts Tax. This tax is being proposed to pay for a whole multitude of programs, some needed and many others not needed. I would say by the time this bill has a chance of passage, it will have so many goodies tacked on to it that we will indeed be broke again in three years or less.
Shultz claims that this tax will actually run businesses out of Illinois and keep new ones from coming. Indeed economic developers in both Indiana and Iowa are already calling this the best thing to happen to their economic development in years. Both of those states claim they are already fielding a lot of requests from Illinois businesses seeking information about moving their operations to those states. Trust me I am not among those who say the sky is falling but believe me when I say I have my doubts about this concept.
Being a small business owner I have already received one letter and one post card from the Governor's office explaining to me that this tax will not affect me since I have less than 2 million dollars in sales per year. Hogwash! If it won't affect me, why do you keep sending me correspondence that tries to remove all doubt? First of all each one of my suppliers will be affected. I don't believe for a minute that any one of them will absorb this tax. As a matter of fact most of them have already told me that if this tax takes effect they will indeed pass along that cost to me as their customer. Some of them have boldly told me to complain to the Governor. I would do that but since he first appeared in Sesser several years ago on the campaign trail, he has refused to return phone calls, answer mail or email, in other words he has completely blown Sesser off. I can add to that, he has completely blown Franklin County also! Good or bad this tax will be passed down the line and will end up in the lap of the consumer. Anyone who tells you anything different than that is just not being honest. Petroleum companies are also saying that if this tax passes, gasoline in Illinois will increase another 6 to 10 cents per gallon.
The Governor said on this whirlwind bus tour that any businesses who did not like this program could "hit the road". Honestly speaking Governor, many of them have already "hit the road" as we have seen over 50,000 good manufacturing jobs leave this state under your watch. Can we afford to see any more jobs leave? I would think not but this whole matter will be up to the legislators to decide.
Speaking of legislators, where were they when the Governor appeared in Marion? Senator Gary Forby, Representatives John Bradley and Brandon Phelps were all noticeably absent. It is highly unusual for the Democratic Governor to appear throughout the state and not have the usual entourage of coat tail hangers mugging for the TV cameras and other press. This was the program, day in and day out, all week long, legislators were noticeably absent from the Governor's press conferences. In some large metropolitan areas up north there were actually more media people at the staged events than there were taxpayers. That should speak volumes to all of us and I have an idea that could be why local legislators opted to be no shows for these events.
This program will need the votes of individual legislators. Already Lt. Governor Pat Quinn, Comptroller Dan Hynes, and Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias have denounced the plan and have boldly proclaimed it will not work as presented. This is where the legislators come in. Each and every one of them almost without fail, almost because there are a few good ones left and I'll let you identify them, have projects in their districts that need to be funded. They all have schools that need built, highways and bridges need repaired or replaced, fire trucks, police cars, libraries, and a whole lot more that needs done. You can rest assured they have hundreds of requests for millions of dollars.
Each of the legislators will have a list to present to the Governor outlining what they need done. Most of them will adopt a wait and see attitude on this program until the vote counting starts. Once it gets down to the nitty gritty we will see them fall like dominoes. Once they have a commitment, in writing of course, they will decide to cast their votes in favor of this idea. They are already seeing an immense amount of pressure from lobbyists, especially the two major teacher's unions in the state. I belong to one of those unions so I am privy to their back room workings.
The bottom line on this program though is that once a well know author and non political person like Jack Shultz calls the Governor out on this program and offers his advice saying it will not work, we should all pay close attention to what is being proposed. You and I are about to get hit in the knees and now is the time to make your feelings known to your legislator!
Sesser has joined the ranks of thousands of other cities in the country and formed a tax increment financing district (TIF). We voted at last week's council meeting to become only the second city in Franklin County to have a TIF district. In short this program is set up to offer incentives to developers who would either already be here or would come here to help build up our community. We have decided to focus on new housing in Sesser with the thought that we can attract a new sub division or two and move some new families into our city. We already have the safest city in the county, we are working on making it the nicest looking, our Main Street is very nice, we have a great school system, and many other things to brag about. We feel like we have a story to tell and this will help us get the message out. We will keep you informed as to our progress.
We hope you had an enjoyable Easter weekend. We attended a great cantata last Sunday at the Sesser Opera House performed by our Community Choir under the direction of Gayla Stubblefield. It was a good show and was well attended. That evening we attended another cantata, this time at the Benton First United Methodist Church under the direction of Dave McHaney. This was another fantastic production. Friday night we attended the community Good Friday service sponsored by the Sesser-Valier Ministerial Alliance and hosted by the Valier First Baptist Church. Sesser's Apostolic Church Pastor, Brad Dunning delivered a dynamic message about Easter. Easter Sunday was a flurry of family as we visited mom and dad, great grandmother Marge in Galatia, and ended up with grandparents Dean and Margaret.
We also visited with Don and Sadie Lewis, former residents of Sesser who came back for a visit. Bill Crocker is out of the hospital as is Josephine Goessman, Ruth Ann King, Jim Kelly, and Art Basso. Betty Edwards is in a St. Louis hospital for heart surgery. Dwight Dame is also in the hospital. Keep these folks in your thoughts and prayers!
If you need us, give us a call at 625-5322 or 625-3611 or write to nedmitchell@verizon.net or www.sesser.org
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