November 1, 2011. BLOWING ROCK -- Blowing Rock News is pleased to publish letters to the editor, as long as they are written within our policies for good taste and absent hateful or obscene content.  They must also have a verifiable name and contact information (we do not publish anonymous letters of any kind).

November 1, 2011

Dear Editor:

As the letters to the editors fly back and forth I felt compelled to add one to the ever growing pile as well. Some people feel that we need to stay at status quo.

Lack of vision and status quo is one of the reasons we find ourselves sometimes at difficult crossroads, the result then requires tough and many times un popular decisions.

If you read the questions being considered for the forum you realize that our Village needs to make some decisions now for the future.

We will need to look back as well and correct some decisions of the past.

We are facing issues of a declining population, especially among young people, a 3 year inventory of homes for sale, a town debt that exceeds our current annual budget and growing, and a road widening that offers the possibility of hurting our merchants and town in general.

The other thing that no one wants to talk about is that our 2^nd home resident’s population is aging and currently the majority of them are 65-84 years of age. This represents 60% of our property taxes outside of what our businesses and locals pay.

With a housing inventory that is already high and no one replacing this aging group the Town needs to develop a long range plan on how they are going to deal with these very looming issues.

Now having said all of that, we have one of the greatest places to live and some of the best assets and nicest people I have ever met. It is our responsibility to leave things better than we found them.

Right now is the time to plan for where Blowing Rock will be in 10 years.  Vision is described as facing reality today.

We all have one thing in common and that is that we care about Blowing Rock. Let’s use that as our focal point and pull together to protect it.

Please get out and Vote Nov. 8^th.  With the earth movers, bulldozers, blasting, closed roads, rerouting traffic down Main Street, and 20,000 cars a day, change is coming . Status quo is only setting us up for larger and more difficult decisions.

I hope you will give me the honor to serve all the residents and businesses of this town by voting for me on November the 8^th.

Dan Phillips, Candidate for Blowing Rock Town Council

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