As many may already know, the City of Linton recently completed a Comprehensive Plan, which was done with the help of Bernardin, Lochmueller and Associates, Inc., an Evansville-based firm. This extensive report contains a plethora of information, facts, and figures about the City of Linton and Greene County as a whole.
From this report, I have pulled a few interesting tidbits about area employment, the largest employers, and average commute times for residents, such as:
*Fifty-one percent of Greene County residents work outside of Greene County. Nearly half of those commuters are traveling into Monroe County.
The top employers in Linton by number of employees:
*Wal-Mart (300 employees);
*Greene County General Hospital (200 employees); and
*Linton-Stockton Township School Corporation (150 employees)
The average travel time for workers living in Linton is 30 minutes. The list below shows the percentage of commuters by travel time:
*40 percent - less than 15 minutes
*20 percent - 15 to 30 minutes
*12 percent - 30 to 45 minutes
*11 percent - 45 to 60 minutes
*17 percent - more than 1 hour
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The Linton Music Festival
The Linton Music Festival will be this weekend. It is already in its third year, and the show this year promises to be bigger and better than ever. Hopefully everyone comes out to see a few -- if not all -- of the bands playing over the weekend.
It's amazing that all of this entertainment is offered free of charge and truly wonderful to have an event like this hosted in a small, rural area such as ours!
Please also be sure to say "thank you" to Jared Albright for founding and organizing this event, the Parks Board and City of Linton employees for all that they do leading up to and after the event, the corporate sponsors that provide the funding to make this FREE, and the countless volunteers that make this project a success.
It's amazing that all of this entertainment is offered free of charge and truly wonderful to have an event like this hosted in a small, rural area such as ours!
Please also be sure to say "thank you" to Jared Albright for founding and organizing this event, the Parks Board and City of Linton employees for all that they do leading up to and after the event, the corporate sponsors that provide the funding to make this FREE, and the countless volunteers that make this project a success.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Oh Where Has My Money Been & Gone?
Has the question, "What ever happened to that dollar bill that was in my wallet just last week?" ever enter your mind? You may have used that dollar bill to buy something from a local store, but where did it go after that? And where did it go after that store?
At the website http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ you can answer that question! (If the bill is one of many million that are registered, that is.) After receiving so many bills with this website stamped on them over the past few years, curiosity got the best of me and I visited the website. Upon visiting, I found the website had been in existence since 1998. It was created by Hank Eskin, who holds an MBA degree from the prestigious Wharton School of Business and is now a computer consultant in Massachusetts.
The website works like this:
A user registers an e-mail address at the site and enters the serial number and year of each bill he or she wants to track, as well as the zip code where each bill was found. The user then writes or stamps "www.wheresgeorge.com" on the bills and spends them as they normally would. Hopefully, a subsequent owner of the bill will get curious as I did and visit the Website too. If this person enters the bill information into the system, the website will alert the person who registered it, and it will show the new owner where the bill has traveled thus far. The website even estimates how many miles each day that the money has traveled on average.
Best of all, the website is free, as it is supported by advertising, the sale of branded memorabilia, and by users who pay a fee for extra features. So, although there will be some people who may think the whole concept is silly, it does offer cheap entertainment for those that participate.
There is much more to this story, though, which can be applied to our local economy:
When some thought is given to how money "flows" in our economy, a person can quickly see that a community benefits when money is recycled within the community -- or passes from one firm to another and from a firm to local households -- and stays there. When local businesses sell products or services outside the community, those profits help pay for the wages of employees who are residents of the community, as well as property taxes to support the local school system, library, police and fire protection. A money "drain" is created when local dollars are spent or invested outside the community or taxed away by state and federal governments.
Drains can be fixed though.
In applying these thoughts to Greene County, one way to expand the local economy is to sell more goods and services to customers outside our city, county, and state borders. There are many, many types of products and services that can be a part of our economic base that earns these "outside" dollars. The types of industries probably most often considered in this area are agricultural production, mining, forestry, fishing, and manufacturing; however, virtually any firm in any industry can become an "exporter" to bring these dollars into our community. Some local shops have already begun to do this by placing a selection of their products for sale on eBay or their own websites, for example, which can effectively reach the entire developed world.
Another way to bring more dollars into the local economy is to provide those goods or services currently being purchased outside the area. For example, this could be office products bought by a local business, government entity, or school.
This can be applied to outside grant dollars as well by applying for federal, state, and private grants for every project we can. Many are available, but typically come along with the price of a lot of "red tape" which must be accounted for in the planning timeline.
By encouraging people to invest their savings close-to-home by providing loans to business owners and taking ownership in new start-up businesses, this not only keeps the money circulating in the local economy but adds to the productive capacity too. For example, while one office may not be able to support a new cleaning service, if ten new offices were started, possibly a new cleaning service could be supported too. So, it is not just ten new businesses created but eleven (ten new offices plus the new cleaning business to clean those offices)!
Lastly, if we put inefficiently utilized local resources, such as poorly-spent tax dollars or under-utilized assets, to work more productively, we can achieve more success locally too. For example, if blighted properties are rehabilitated and improved, they obviously become more valuable, but there is another benefit to the community: more property taxes can be collected from that once-blighted home. So, more tax dollars are available for the common good, such as schools, roads, and recreation facilities.
By the way, stamping the website on legal tender raises another question, "Is this illegally defacing currency?" According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's website http://www.bep.treas.gov/document.cfm/18/104 the "defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service". So, it appears to be okay to write on money, as long as the writing does not deface the bill so much that it is unusable.
At the website http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ you can answer that question! (If the bill is one of many million that are registered, that is.) After receiving so many bills with this website stamped on them over the past few years, curiosity got the best of me and I visited the website. Upon visiting, I found the website had been in existence since 1998. It was created by Hank Eskin, who holds an MBA degree from the prestigious Wharton School of Business and is now a computer consultant in Massachusetts.
The website works like this:
A user registers an e-mail address at the site and enters the serial number and year of each bill he or she wants to track, as well as the zip code where each bill was found. The user then writes or stamps "www.wheresgeorge.com" on the bills and spends them as they normally would. Hopefully, a subsequent owner of the bill will get curious as I did and visit the Website too. If this person enters the bill information into the system, the website will alert the person who registered it, and it will show the new owner where the bill has traveled thus far. The website even estimates how many miles each day that the money has traveled on average.
Best of all, the website is free, as it is supported by advertising, the sale of branded memorabilia, and by users who pay a fee for extra features. So, although there will be some people who may think the whole concept is silly, it does offer cheap entertainment for those that participate.
There is much more to this story, though, which can be applied to our local economy:
When some thought is given to how money "flows" in our economy, a person can quickly see that a community benefits when money is recycled within the community -- or passes from one firm to another and from a firm to local households -- and stays there. When local businesses sell products or services outside the community, those profits help pay for the wages of employees who are residents of the community, as well as property taxes to support the local school system, library, police and fire protection. A money "drain" is created when local dollars are spent or invested outside the community or taxed away by state and federal governments.
Drains can be fixed though.
In applying these thoughts to Greene County, one way to expand the local economy is to sell more goods and services to customers outside our city, county, and state borders. There are many, many types of products and services that can be a part of our economic base that earns these "outside" dollars. The types of industries probably most often considered in this area are agricultural production, mining, forestry, fishing, and manufacturing; however, virtually any firm in any industry can become an "exporter" to bring these dollars into our community. Some local shops have already begun to do this by placing a selection of their products for sale on eBay or their own websites, for example, which can effectively reach the entire developed world.
Another way to bring more dollars into the local economy is to provide those goods or services currently being purchased outside the area. For example, this could be office products bought by a local business, government entity, or school.
This can be applied to outside grant dollars as well by applying for federal, state, and private grants for every project we can. Many are available, but typically come along with the price of a lot of "red tape" which must be accounted for in the planning timeline.
By encouraging people to invest their savings close-to-home by providing loans to business owners and taking ownership in new start-up businesses, this not only keeps the money circulating in the local economy but adds to the productive capacity too. For example, while one office may not be able to support a new cleaning service, if ten new offices were started, possibly a new cleaning service could be supported too. So, it is not just ten new businesses created but eleven (ten new offices plus the new cleaning business to clean those offices)!
Lastly, if we put inefficiently utilized local resources, such as poorly-spent tax dollars or under-utilized assets, to work more productively, we can achieve more success locally too. For example, if blighted properties are rehabilitated and improved, they obviously become more valuable, but there is another benefit to the community: more property taxes can be collected from that once-blighted home. So, more tax dollars are available for the common good, such as schools, roads, and recreation facilities.
By the way, stamping the website on legal tender raises another question, "Is this illegally defacing currency?" According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's website http://www.bep.treas.gov/document.cfm/18/104 the "defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service". So, it appears to be okay to write on money, as long as the writing does not deface the bill so much that it is unusable.
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