Working together works

This is one of those instances where we’re likely just preaching to the choir — Rome and Floyd County governments working together is in the best interest of everyone.

But before we get into that, we’d like to offer condolences to Rep. Eddie Lumsden and his family. Eddie lost his mother recently and we want the Lumsden family to know our thoughts and prayers are with them.

Secondly, we’d like to thank Pete McDonald for his willingness to step in as full-time elections supervisor. With the May primary coming fast, we’re glad to be moving forward with a new elections office location, new board and new elections supervisor.

Back to the topic at hand: Working together.

Remember, just under 10 years ago we saw great working relationships between the city and county fracture into protracted battles over funding. What was an attitude of working together took more of a “that’s their problem” tone and not a lot got done.

Fast forward a few years, and several elections, and we’ve been doing really well. We’re seeing a community on track for growth after a long period of relative stagnation.

The issue we’re seeing more and more is the idea of Rome and Floyd County as separate entities beginning to raise its ugly head again.

Just in case you forgot, here’s an excerpt from a Rome News-Tribune editorial from 2012.

GREATER Romans may be entering a time warp from which they believed they had escaped.

Apparently ready and willing to drop a $400,000 federal grant for construction of the Redmond Trail portion of a joint city/county project of long duration and considerable intricacy because it requires a local match of $150,000, Floyd County Commission Chairman Irwin Bagwell and Commissioner Garry Fricks indicated the county has no money to spare for a project inside the city limits of Rome.

Boy, is that ever a throwback to the bad old days in these parts. Inside Rome … bad. In unincorporated area … good. Wasn’t that discarded long ago?

Rumor has it that Rome lies within the county, that both governments have more recently joined hands and forces to build a lot of a very popular hike/bike trail system and many other improvements of great value open to use by everybody. Other rumors report that “federal money” (just like “state money”) comes from all Greater Rome taxpayers who generally see darn little of it come back to them. And, of course, if the county persists in this stance then somebody else will get “our money.”

First off, this doesn’t have to happen again. We’re on the cusp of a large amount of needed growth in our community.

We’re just completing some of the projects spoken about in that editorial from 10 years ago. It’s a great thing to see these projects getting close to completion — look at the bridge connecting the Mount Berry Trail to downtown Rome. It’s a great project and it benefits everyone in both the city and county.

This time many of the rumblings are coming from the city. Several city commissioners feel that city taxpayers are overtaxed and under represented, especially in terms of available park facilities.

You know what? To a degree they’re right. There aren’t that many parks within the city limits and we should do something about it. But that doesn’t mean we need to adopt an us versus them mentality.

We can and should work together to solve any problem.

We’re all Floyd County residents and we all would like to see more facilities for each of us to take our kids to or have a picnic. We, as city residents, also need to realize that the county is a fairly large area and it’s a good idea to offer park services in those large areas.

We also all must realize offering those services is going to cost money and, in the end, we all foot the bill. The question is are you willing to pay to have your entire community be a pretty awesome place to live, work and play?

We think it’s worth it.

Thank you for reading.