We love local success stories, so let’s make one

The biggest story in the Imperial Valley this past weekend was that former Imperial High School star running back Royce Freeman was selected in the third round of the NFL draft by the Denver Broncos. There wasn’t even a close second in terms of public interest.

It’s pretty easy to find someone around here who knows Royce Freeman or who taught Royce Freeman or who knows somebody who once ate in the same restaurant as Royce Freeman. Freeman is one of ours. In some way, his success on the national stage feels like it’s our own.

Local matters. It’s instinctive. We want to be associated with a winner.

That’s why so many people remember that singer and actress Cher was born in El Centro while almost no one recalls that Nathaniel West, author the famed novels Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust, died here.

However, thanks to our association with his novel The Winning of Barbara Worth, we probably are one of only two places left in the world where people still read Harold Bell Wright. The other is Branson, Mo., the setting for his novel The Shepherd of the Hills.

Again, we like a feel-good story to which we can claim a connection. Local matters.

Except maybe when it comes to our retail business community. Then it doesn’t seem to matter so much.

The list of retail establishment disappearing from Imperial Valley seems to grow by the week. One week it’s a book store. The next it’s a Toys “R” Us or a J.C. Penney. This past week, it was a hobby shop. And, for the most part, there isn’t much new retail taking their place, including their jobs and tax revenues.

Geri McCarty, long-time owner of The Hobby Shop in El Centro, has had a front-row seat to the exodus of local retail. The business she helped start with her father 46 years ago closed its doors for good on Saturday.

People don’t want to pay for service anymore, she observed. And they don’t want to pay sales tax, either.

But they do what their sidewalks and streets to be pristine and pothole free.

“Where do they think that money comes from?” she asked.

Indeed, people tend to have a very short-term view of how they make purchases. Don’t take our word for it: Just take a look at the vacancies in our local shopping centers.

That’s rent not being paid, wages not being paid, taxes not being generated and dollars not circulating through out local economy. That vacuum tends to get filled with vandals, vagrants and thieves.

It certainly doesn’t get filled through Amazon Prime, aside from the wages paid the delivery service drivers.

Local matters. That’s one of the ideas we try to celebrate with our annual Readers’ Choice competition. It’s not just about who has the best tacos or where can get you the best deal on a new car. It’s about giving all of our local businesses an opportunity to step out of the shadows.

The hope is, you’ll check them out. We’re not naïve. We know virtually no one is going to shop exclusively in Imperial Valley. But we are suggesting we all give our purchasing decisions more thought. Dollars spent within our community multiply here. Dollars spent anywhere else do not.

Local matters. Readers will find us beating that particular drum a lot in the coming weeks and months. We invite you to do the same.

Let’s make it a symphony.