"James, I may have to leave due to taxes."

"James, I may have to leave due to rising taxes. We can't afford it here anymore." This from someone that does magnificent Blue Collar labor in the city.

Moments before, an elder gentleman came where I was parked, and double parked in the street, I was concerned. I had just come through neighborhoods for several hours respectfully taping the card on hand railings Etc introducing what I'm concerned about.

Yesterday, for the first time, someone called the police, when the officer found me, we know each other, oh, james, what you're doing is perfectly legal. I just had to come and check. So I thought, this older gentleman is going to chew me out for taping a card. 

He said, do you have a yard sign so I can put it in my yard? I replied with a laugh, sir, not one person has come alongside me in this campaign. Not one. Zero. 

So no I don't have any yard signs. He saw a bunch of cards in my hand. May I have some please? I'll tape them all over my mailbox. And I gave them to him. Oh dang. I just realized that the postal Department might be all over him for that. I wish I had thought to tell him. But it was really really dear. So it's no longer a campaign of one, there are two of us actually doing something. I'm deeply touched.

And it was heartbreaking. He said, I've been in that house for 10 years. They just raised my taxes $500. I'm a senior citizen.

There are just too many for sale signs around the city. 80% of the sidewalks and streets are crumbling. What we can't see is a water system that needed to be replaced 20 years ago. Do you know how expensive that will be?

There are three Alternatives from a financial perspective:

1. continue to let the city crumble as we have been, 
2. jack up taxes as we are doing, or 
3. roll up our sleeves and do the incredibly challenging and time consuming Community work of making ourselves attractive to the kinds of new employers that we want, and attracting them to our magnificent region.

4. There is one more thing. We have a massive addiction to the poverty profiteering industry in this city. It's habit, we're not mean, we're just lazy and addicted to that easy money. That easy money from federal government and Foundations is gone, forever. What monies are available in the future are going to be attracted by those that are getting out of poverty profiteering business into eradicating poverty by replacing the conditions that Foster it and creating the conditions where people have the inspiration and ability to climb themselves toward prosperity. 

No, it's not theory. Go to the library ask where the materials are for communities bridging to prosperity. You'll probably have to push off the dust, no one's interested. But maybe you will be. 

Hundreds of communities are proactively and or reactively realizing that the condition of poverty kills communities, and conditions that move people to prosperity are achievable, being done, road maps exist, the work is irresistibly joyful, and they get to save their city in the meantime.

In other environments I have been doing number three and number four for my entire adulthood because I'm addicted to it, I can't resist the joy of helping floundering communities thrive. I've had more than my share of successes. I don't know what we can achieve in cortez. I know that if we don't roll up our sleeves and try and do our best, all of us, especially all of we citizens, that the forecast is disaster.

There's a new epidemic of poverty heading our way: honest forecasts are that AI is likely to create unemployment in the United States of 20% within the next 4 years. And the economy is flashing red nationally. If we get out ahead of this and aggressively start vitalizing our community after Decades of letting it rot, we are going to be one of the most joyful communities in the world, and we're going to have a heck of a lot better Financial Outlook than otherwise. Let's do it.