Over the years, our city government has seen its fair share of changes in leadership positions. Through these changes, our new leaders feel the need to form committees that will help them identify ongoing issues.

This ultimately should be a good thing. Unfortunately, the list of names used to create these committees over the years has been relatively short, causing committee after committee to basically be constructed by many of the same names time and time again.

And yet, year after year we still continue to look for answers on how to move our community forward.

What’s that old saying? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results!” At some point we need to begin thinking outside the box because history has proven that our current method isn’t working.

Last month I wrote a column titled “Leaders for a Better Tomorrow” focusing on a positive approach to growth and trying to weed out the negativity that keeps us from doing so. It’s about Leaders who can work together on a common goal of betterment for our entire community. Leaders who understand that a difference of opinion is a good thing and can work together through these differences.

I have reached out to a number of community leaders that feel as I do. Each one is very interested in being a part of something that might actually ignite positive change. Smaller groups can remain more focused on a task than that of a committee with 20 plus members. This will not be an open group for just anyone to attend. We will, however, invite others to help us as we discuss ongoing issues and ways to combat them, but the group will remain smaller. Over the coming months we will begin to visit regularly on items that continue to be issues within the community. Of course the hot topics continue to be city transportation, street repairs, minimal police force, gang issues, city council meetings, etc. But we also want to hear from you. We want to know what we can help you with. Because the reality is, this is about all of us.

Please send your thought to rich.macke@panews.com