Triad Community Forum

I attended the Triad Community Forum on Growth and Infrastructure at the Volvo Communications Center yesterday. The forum was developed by the NCSU Institute for Emerging Issues and was sponsored by UNCTV, the Piedmont TriadPartnership and the Bryan Foundation. A number of business and government leaders from throughout the Piedmont Triad attended and took part in the discussion.

The major things that I took away from the Forum that could help me as a City Council member are the following:

1. The awareness that "Infrastructure" is made up of the whole system of water reservoirs and lakes, water mains, sewers and waste treatment plants, garbage and solid waste disposal systems, schools, roads, bridges, airports, ralroads, bus systems, electric power grids, communications interfaces, and others. It is the backbone, skeleton, and neural network of our societal organism.
2. Some agency, or more likely groups of agencies, is going to have to spend a tremendous amount of money in the near future to repair our existing infrastructure just to meet current needs.
3. The same agency, or groups of agencies, is going to have to spend even more money to update our infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing populaion and changing demands for goods and services by our society.
4. Profit-seeking companies in the private sector will maintain and extend the infrastructure that directly relates to their production of goods and services demanded by their customers.
5. Governmental entities will be left to meet the needs for maintaining and updating the remaining infrastructure components.

Governmental entities (federal, state, county, municipal) must plan now for how they are going to meet those needs in the future. The long-range planning that must take place to meet our future infrasture needs by governments will involve the following:

• Determining what infracture components we want to build and why. This could entail looking at desired quality of live issues as well as an assessment of current resourses available, ad deciding what types of industries we want to have.
• Determining what sources of funding to use to finance the chosen components. Long-term projects could be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis using current tax revenues or by issuing long-term debt that will be repaid using future tax revenues. Raise taxes now - or raise future taxes?
• Determining what collaborative arrangements can be formed with other governments. These could range from consolidating cities and counties to setting up regional cooperative agreements.
• Partner with private sector entities. An example would be a government issuing debt to finance a corporate office building which also contains a government office.

Meeting the challenge to provide the needed and desired infrastructure for the future will require concerted planning efforts from all governmental entities. That planning should include major input at evey step from citizens. Elected officials must demonstrate that they are listening to their constituents and chosing those projects and funding options that best meet the needs and respect the values of their constituents.

As your City Council member, I will seek your opinions, listen to what you say, and vote in accordance with your wishes.

Art Boyett