Letter to the Editor: Reality Check

Wishful thinking/daydreaming is fun but keep an honest eye on the horizon. Mom had a saying, "don't let your eyes be bigger than your stomach." Throwing around big numbers, looking for grants and raising taxes is tempting but isn't realistic when held up to the light of long-term past and future demographic change.

Anomalies are an unsteady thing. Spend millions on a school addition because there's a big first grade! Well, the 13 seniors last year started as a class of 30 a few years ago. Spend three or four hundred thousand on a show hall! On June 23 the last theater closed in Grand Forks. Devils Lake’s show hall has reopened after a large cash influx, but let’s see in a few years. Their bowling alley closed years ago. Volunteers keep it going!

The current generation of baby boomers, one-third of the nation, is rapidly aging and going south for the winter. They won't be around and many aren't able health wise to volunteer, go to shows or bowl. Spend a couple million on the airport! I only count three or four airplanes in the county and the owners have their own hangers and grass strips. By the way, Fessenden, the county seat to our west, only has a grass strip. I only remember a couple years when the airport was used by a spray plane and doubt they were charged for using the strip. Most spraying is now done by large ground sprayers.

I've heard it said by some pretty sharp cookies at business seminars like SCORE meetings, "Never fight a long term trend, and your first loss is your least loss." Who's going to pay for the upkeep in 10 or 20 years on any of this? I'd like to see the drum beaters take the business plan to the bank and somehow put their name on the loans if the plan fades out of reality.

Bill Ziegler

New Rockford, N.D.