Discussing small town renewal

I was born in the small town of Ninety Six, SC, and was raised in the small town of Honea Path, SC. Honea Path of the late 1970s and early 1980s remains to me an idyllic place. Honea Path was a place I could ride my bicycle as a boy to the town library or to the Wilson’s Dime Store to buy baseball cards without my parents worrying about me. In the background of downtown was the low hum of the textile mill, humming with hundreds of jobs. Honea Path was a place where your neighbor and your scout master joined your father in teaching you values. It was a place where I learned about God, hard work, and persevering through all sorts of obstacles. Sundown, not a cell phone, was one's call call home.

Today, Honea Path and so many other towns like it are different. The hum of the mill has been replaced by the odd smell of methamphetamine cooking. The once busy downtown stands half empty. Once proud town governments struggle to just pay for basic services for their people.

It is a scene found not only the upstate of South Carolina, but throughout the nation. The traditions and values of small town life are being hijacked by the realities of today’s world. Increased bureaucracy and defeated spirits combine to crush the pride that could be found in renewal.

Small town officials are not truly to blame. The vast majority of them go into service to their towns with the best of intentions. But, in today’s bureaucratic heavy local governments, so called professionals convince the elected the leaders of the limits of what can be done, instead of pushing them to what can and should be done.

What can and should be done is a renewal of town governments in this state. We who live in small towns must demand of our leaders the willingness to do the so called “homework” and “lobbying” themselves. For every small town dollar spent on bureaucracy is one less small town dollar spent on investment. We must demand that our elected officials get their priorities in order. Public safety, such as police, fire and EMS services, must come first. Then, infrastructure and economic development needs to be addressed.

When it comes to economic development, efforts must be made on realistic goals and efforts should be made to insure a united front is presented to those who wish to invest in our small towns. Divided interests cannot be afforded if we are to renew ourselves and move forward in today’s global economy.

In the end, those of us who live and work in small towns must realize that, despite our races, or relative stations in life, we all occupy a very small piece of ground on Earth. It is in all our interests that we work towards streamlining small town government so that it is effective, less burdensome, and creates a richening of the economic soil so that our children and grandchildren can thrive and be as proud to be “small town” as we are.