Part One of a weekly series
There is a saying that the good old days; weren’t always as good as we remember. Often, they only seem that way because we didn’t yet know what problems were waiting around the corner.
In government, there’s another truth: The bills always come due.
When I announced my intention to run for Mayor back in December of 2022, I made it clear that I was running because I believed our City needed to change the course of its leadership.
I wasn’t running because I believed everything that had been done before was wrong. And I certainly don’t believe that every problem we have today can be attributed to one person, one administration, or even the last few administrations.
I want to believe that every mayor who came before me did the best they could with the information, resources, and circumstances they had at the time. Sometimes, maintaining the status quo - or even doing nothing - may genuinely have seemed like the best decision available at that moment.
But circumstances change. Information changes. And eventually, decisions that were deferred have to be made.
For years, Bristow continued to function. Budgets were balanced. Water flowed. Streets stayed open. Employees came to work. From the outside, things appeared to be working just fine.
But functioning is not the same thing as being healthy.
Deferred maintenance doesn’t repair itself. Outdated policies don’t become compliant simply because they have been in place for a long time. Temporary fixes don’t become permanent solutions just because we get used to them.
And problems that aren’t addressed don’’t disappear. They wait.