Chamber Breakfast

This is a couple of days after the fact, but we went to the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Tuesday. The key speaker that morning was Bay City Mayer, Charles Brunner. The topic of the day was the condition of roads in Bay City and let me tell you, it was not a pretty picture.

Bay City is in a world of hurt when it comes to infrastructure. I can't remember the exact numbers, but something like two-thirds of the streets in Bay City receive a failing grade and the city doesn't have any money to do much more than repair potholes. I think the one figure they gave is that it would take around $100 million dollars to bring all 200 miles of city streets up to passing grades. That's about 30 years worth of budget for street repair. In other words, it isn't going to get done.

My biggest concern is that if we don't have enough money to take care of our streets and bridges (it is up to the city to take care of two of Bay City's four drawbridges, the other two are either state or federally funded), how are we going to have money to take care of anything?

Maybe we just start selling off naming rights to all public places. I know that some people were pissed when Jack and Alice Wirt's name went up on the new library, but their contribution went a long way toward getting the library built. Dow Chemical has been very active in putting their money back into the tri-cities and giving life to a variety of projects--Dow Diamond and the new YMCA, to name a couple. How long will it be before cars driving over the 989 Design Liberty Bridge?

I'm not a doom-and-gloom guy and I really do believe that there could be a bright future for Bay City, otherwise I wouldn't have moved here. I have to be honest, though, it scares me to think that our infrastructure is an economic albatross. Not just in Bay City, but in towns and cities all over the country. How can we, as a country, get out of this downward spiral? We've been spending tomorrow's dollars today, waiting for some economic bubble and that bubble doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.

What actions can we take today to avoid completely bankrupting our future?