Lead not follow

Here's my letter to the Daily Item from 9/11/08, which is based on comments I made at the CSCC meeting on 9/4/08. My suggested headline was more understated: "Community College a good idea." They also removed my paragraph break.

Lead not follow

I am happy to see that Rep. Russ Fairchild has joined the call for creation of a community college in Sunbury (“Community college seen as boon for region”). Why haven’t we heard more ideas about how to be proactive in thinking about economic development? Here’s an example of an idea that could truly be a win/win proposition.

There seems to be a pattern of reactive leadership rather than visionary leadership in the Central Susquehanna Valley. It’s one thing to join a parade already in motion, quite another to put one together and get it in motion. Now that the community college proposal is underway, let’s hope we don’t have to wait as long for it as we have for the Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway.

Loren Gustafson
East Buffalo Township


I should have added that the Thruway idea has been around since 1968!

As chance (or editorial manipulation, not sure which) would have it, at the bottom of page 1A was a story about Russ Fairchild reacting to Gov. Rendell's proposal to delay taking off the electric rate caps. (His concern is that it would be unfair to us in Union County who are already having to pay huge increases. Fairness requires that we all suffer together.)

I thought I might be the only one who had noticed this tendency toward "reactive leadership." Then I got a phone call last night from a guy who said he'd seen my letter and wanted me to know that Mr. Fairchild was the reason he hadn't voted a straight ticket for 12 years. I thought he meant he voted for Democrats and crossed party lines to vote for Russ Fairchild. On the contrary, he meant he voted for Republicans but voted against Rep. Fairchild.

I told him that many people seem to appreciate Rep. Fairchild's efforts to respond to the public will about the burner (15 years ago??) or more recently the sale of the Laurelton Center (something I've heard from Democrats in this area), but that I agreed with him that Rep. Fairchild could be doing more. His comment was that Russ Fairchild seems to walk behind Merle Phillips saying "Me too." He then said, and I have to admit it made my day, if you want to run against him, I'll support you. At that point I explained that I was supporting Steve Connelly, who's been in the middle of the effort to get the community college idea going. I'm not sure if I convinced him to do the same, but it made me suspect that others in this area notice that our elected officials spend a lot of time reacting (sometimes slowly), not actively planning for how to create a better future. (I should also credit the Union County Commissioners, who, I think, have tried to get people interested in being proactive through the planning process now underway.