Raves, rants and reality

I want to RAVE about how pretty and clean our downtown area is in Kimball. Seriously, have you noticed that not only is it actually very beautiful with all the flowers, trees, flowering shrubs, and rose bushes, but it’s actually incredibly clean. Unless we are in the middle of a storm, you seldom see trash on main street. I live and work downtown and I see city employees working in the area almost daily and I want everyone to know that I appreciate them and the work they do, and I’m not the only one. Heather Entingh actually brought this to my attention and I have to admit, although I have always appreciated our downtown, I’d never said it. Now, if we can just fix up and put businesses in the empty buildings, wouldn’t that be a rave!

Advertising to replace Daniel Ortiz as city administrator has begun. A quick search on the web finds no less than seven job postings on mostly obscure websites such as sgrjobs.com (Strategic Government Recourses) and icma.org (International City/County Management Association) as well as the city’s website (www.kimballne.org) yet the Observer has not received advertising for the position, which leads me to wonder. Why?

Is it that the city doesn’t believe in paper advertising anymore, do they not like us personally or as a business, or do they feel we are overpriced? I do not believe it is any of those reasons. My RANT for the week is that I believe our elected officials do not want a local managing Kimball.

Why might that be?

In the description of the type of person they are looking for they ask for “emphasis on professional team leadership, progressive attitude, effective communications, public relations, financial management and planning/development.” Does their obvious outside search for candidates mean that they don’t believe anyone in Kimball is qualified?

Personally, I think that they would benefit from hiring someone local, specifically someone who actually gave a darn about our little piece of pavement on the western plains. But, hey, I’m just a tax-paying, community-minded, lived-here-most-of-my-life, local who must not know anything BECAUSE I’m from here. I say, let’s advertise close to home, let us advertise in Nebraska and eastern Wyoming and find someone who wants to be here, who loves the area and fits in, not someone whose beliefs and ideals are completely different from ours.

I’m not saying everyone from outside the area is bad, I’m just saying that we’ve tried that and let’s be honest, do we want a repeat of the friction that we’ve endured the past few years?

I want to leave you with a few questions that could change our REALITY. Wouldn’t it be nice to find someone that works for us and not against us? Wouldn’t it be nice to find someone whom you actually believe is a team player that is interested in making Kimball great again?

Daniel Ortiz has said that his last day as city administrator will be October 21 and according to the advertisements on the web that I’ve found, all applications must be into the city offices by September 15. The next city council meeting is September 13. Let’s have our voices heard at the next council meeting by telling our elected officials what we as tax payers want for our town and what want from our government.