Norfolk Daily News

Saturday – April 19, 2008

Your View

Norfolk’s in the race
NORFOLK — I respect John Amen’s right to express his displeasure with Norfolk’s pace of recovery following the closing of the Tyson plant. But I’m not sure what kind of “pressure” he would have the City of Norfolk exert on the Tyson Corporation to facilitate the sale of the plant. Private property rights and the free enterprise system are still alive and well the last time I checked. I can assure Norfolkans that Mayor Gordon Adams, Mike Nolan, Dan Mauk, R.J. Baker and countless others have been working diligently to promote growth in Norfolk and Northeast Nebraska.

The following quote certainly got my attention: “Maybe now that Norfolk is losing the mayor, city administrator and the potential that some city council people could be replaced, Norfolk will have a chance to go back to 20 years ago when everyone was asking this: How does Norfolk do it?”

It would take an entire edition of the Daily News to cite all of the development that has taken place in Norfolk during the last 20 years. Zoning and Planning informs me that in the past 20 years, they have issued 1,680 commercial and industrial permits with a total valuation of just under $400 million. The last two years have been the highest on record in valuation and 2008 is on pace to exceed those years. One need only look around to see the new housing developments that have occurred during the same timeframe. I would put the above up against any first class city in Nebraska outside of metropolitan Omaha. We may not be number one, but we are in the race.

Have we lost jobs, businesses failed, population declined and housing construction slowed? Certainly, but Norfolk will recover because we have positive individuals who continue to invest in our community.

IVAN VAN DYKE
Norfolk City Council, Ward III