Isolationism in McCook?

EDITOR'S NOTE -- The following was written in response to the editorial, "Poppers need to go beyond the obvious," published in the weekend edition, April 17-18:

In response to this piece, written with the best intentions, I think that we as citizens within this community must focus. The truth is that McCook is not an attractive place to live if you are single, young, and planning on developing any kind of career.

First, and foremost, McCook is very limited in job opportunities. Honestly, I would stay in McCook, but I don't necessarily feel that my best foot would be forward working a low-paying mid-management job for the rest of my life. Our job market is very underdeveloped, even with companies attempting to push into McCook, the city has made it quite difficult for many businesses to enter McCook or often even difficult to expand. This tight and choking grip on economy in McCook needs to be reversed to attract younger people to stay in the McCook area. So much in this area depends on almost a hierarchy of names and time living in McCook job's can be quite scarce, especially decent jobs.

To follow along with the article that this is in response too, I agree we need to make this a "nice place to live." People are looking for somewhere that they can live that offers them the best opportunity to excel in work as well as family. This is not so in McCook. Even the additions have been bullied by the city of McCook. If we would support growth it would help immensely, possibly calling the Pearson addition a part of the city and encouraging people to build and expand the city north, south, or any direction for that matter. We as citizens cannot let McCook traditions stop the growth and drive people away from the town. If there is to be a McCook tomorrow someone needs to intervene and make this an attractive or "nice" place to live.

Commerce isn't the entire issue, as a young person myself living in McCook I understand that there is truly "nothing to do." Why do I say this? Well, I do have a few options, I could go to the bar, or I could go to the bar. As an individual that has given up the drink, this definitely limits my options as to what I can spend an evening doing. This also sends a poor message to children that wait their entire young lives to be 21 so they can go to the bar like Mom and Dad. This lack of social gathering in McCook even works it way into younger children. Where exactly is a 14 year old child supposed to go in the middle of a hard winter to enjoy themselves? McCook needs to start working for itself and not against itself and develop a new attitude to attracting a younger population.

McCook is also very behind things that are happening in the rest of the world. Three years ago I lived in an urban environment. Dial-up Internet was a thing of the past, almost ancient; we are just now moving into the digital world of Internet. Is this a bad sign, that we can be years behind urban environments?

I say yes. Has the city of McCook adopted any type of attitude towards using this new high-tech world as a platform to lead rural communities into a new age? The answer is no, without the help of companies like Pinpoint Communications we would still be dialing up at a mere 56k and hoping that everyone wasn't logged on before us.

To further impress upon reader's the importance of learning ways to attract people to the McCook environment, I will give you an example of another family possibly leaving. At the end of this school year a teacher will be resigning, this of course, because the teacher was asked to resign. This individual has children that will be entering the school systems. In reality they will not be leaving. However, what if they have too, in order to support their family? Did McCook just loose more money?

Of course, there are probably good reasons for the asked resignation and that is between the school district and the teacher spoken of.

Overall, I see a definite isolationist trend in McCook that could ultimately lead to the eventual death of a fine small town. As we speak there are orders in process to close one business that employs (90) McCook people. It was announced yesterday at roughly 3 p.m. that Sitel Corp. will be closing this branch of its telemarketing services for good on June 25th, 2004. How does this impact many people in this small community?

Tremendously for most, with a job market that has dwindled to a stand still many people will be forced to leave the McCook area and find employment in a more urban environment. Too cite this, I spent a month looking for a minimum-wage part time job and had a tough time. I was not facing competing against 100 other people looking for the same job. This must be a defining moment where I say, "Thank goodness for Wal-Mart."

How does McCook expect to survive if key member's in this community don't step up to the plate and make decisions that can push McCook into a new century and make McCook a place that everyone wants to live? With our current situation, why would anyone want to live here? We can't even drink the water, yet I can drive to my sisters a few miles north of town and her water is fine. McCook as a whole needs to start facing their problems and finding plausible solutions that will attract people to the community of McCook.