Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
Edward Kingcade
he summit in which featured Mrs. Cheryl Brown one of the city’s assembly members, was a great experience and provided a lot of knowledge about the city’s current status and where hopefully it will be in the near future. Mrs. Brown didn’t speak much but she did get up for a couple of 2-3 minute speeches which were more inspirational than anything. She also handed out an award to Dr. John Husing who was also in attendance. Dr. Husing spoke for the majority of the time accompanied by an projector screen in which it had slides of different graphs and photos pertaining to the topic he was currently speaking about. He touch on several topics about the city and its current condition, and where it stack up against other cities. Dr. Husing stated that currently the city is one of the lowest scoring when it comes to adults who have graduated high school and went on to obtain a master’s/bachelors degree at 18 out of 100 adults who have done so. Where the average for most cities is 42-43 out of 100 adults who have done so. Which ultimately leads to them either being more of a successful adult , or less of an successful adult which has an ricochet effect to their family and children in most cases. In all for adults he was saying we must make sure we further educate ourselves to ensure an better chance at success as individuals. He also touched on the difficulties for the small businesses in our area and how it is difficult for most to become successful due to the current financial status of our city. Stating that most of our local businesses are in competition with competitors that they can’t compete against due to the fact they are big companies with more power and money. Saying the big companies come in and take over small businesses and consume most of the business real estate in our area and they are coming from different states and cities not locally which takes the money out of our city. Stating that small business can’t go to the next level because of most people’s falling financial status in our city, which ultimately plays a part in companies success. He also touched on the fact that there is a rise in medical cost for the city which also carries a burden for the city. Stating that there is a significant rise in medical expenses for the latino community due to their rising population. Saying that now hospitals will have to become more educated about the latino community when it comes to medical research in the field. Which ultimately cost more money. The solution they had to counter act the problems was to try to make sure everyone is properly and highly educated so they can achieve personal success by having the proper knowledge to do so. Assure that all local business had the proper information and resources to provide great service in their field and provide many more jobs also. To allow more businesses to open up and become a success instead of open and close within the same year. To have more business that are local be locally owned and operated. To have more business networking with one another in hopes of generating more income and more projects that provides more jobs and provides better living to the people of our city. Of course this will take time and must be done one step at a time but as long as we all work together and stay on the same track it can be done in due time.
