The bottom line in Mayor Kevin Smith’s State of the City address Tuesday during the Anderson Rotary Club’s luncheon at Anderson Country Club was simple: To attract investment, you have to make investments.
Intuitively, this is true for all communities, particularly ones such as Anderson that are looking to emerge from economic doldrums.
Smith outlined several ways in which his administration plans to invest in Anderson:
- Foremost, the mayor intends to launch major infrastructure initiatives, some of them growing out of his efforts during his first term in office — 2004-07. An example of this is the river trail system, which Smith touts as a major quality-of-life advancement that was largely put on hold during the Kris Ockomon administration.
- Secondly, he has persuaded City Council to invest heavily in the recruitment of corporations to Anderson through the hiring of Greg Winkler as the director of economic development. Winkler will be an expensive contractor, pulling in $126,000 a year. The investment seems worth it, given Winkler’s connections across the country. But the proof will be in the profit.
- Smith will again pursue beautification projects to make the community more presentable to business recruits and the people who work for them.
- And he will try to bring down Anderson’s tax rate, which escalated during the Ockomon years.
In his State of the City address, Smith danced around another major economic development issue for Anderson: education. He talked about the lack of commitment by parents and students and suggested vaguely that the city’s police would be more aggressive in truancy intervention.
What he failed to note is that the declining enrollment at Anderson’s public schools is being partially offset by a growing number of options for parents who might be attracted by the city’s low housing costs. An array of private and charter schools, as well as more educational options at Anderson University, Ivy Tech Community college and Harrison College, are changing the landscape of education in Anderson.
In closing his speech Tuesday, Smith recalled Anderson’s selection in 2007 as Indiana’s community of the year by the state chamber of commerce. He looked forward to adding such honors again in 2013, ’14, ’15 and ’16.
The community should aim high, and Smith’s plans for getting there are solid. Now his administration must fill in the details of a coordinated strategy to get Anderson back on top.
