Published: May 06, 2008 11:40 am         

Big issues

Region's counties need to meet them together

Although the situations are hardly comparable, the sentiment Benjamin Franklin expressed during the signing of the Declaration of Independence should be appreciated by those who attended a recent tri-county economic development session.

"We must all hang together, gentlemen ... else, we shall most assuredly hang separately," said Franklin. It was his way of warning the colonies that if they did not band together against the British, the British would pick them off and string them up one at a time.

Representatives of Allegany and Garrett counties and Mineral County in West Virginia met last week to discuss the necessity for crossing county and state lines to pool resources and work together on addressing numerous region-wide issues.

Of those issues, there are many - chief among them the need to attract and retain good jobs while preparing our students to enter those careers.

Many areas need to be addressed, ranging from water resources to a shortage of physicians and available housing. Individually, they may be more than any one county can address by itself.

We like the idea of joining forces with our neighbors, and we also like the thinking that took place and the questions that were asked at this conference. One concern is that high school seniors are told what jobs are needed now, not what will be needed when they become college graduates. That's really looking ahead.

There have been previous discussions of combining the efforts of municipalities and counties to bring our region out of its economic doldrums.

It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of thought to accomplish the big goals that were set forth at last week's conference, and it will also take a setting-aside of the "me-first" attitude that we've seen too much of.

On the other hand, we see no reason it can't happen. Let's work together and do it.