West Plains had an overall good year

We are at the end of another year, which is a little bit sudden since it seems like 2017 just started. But it has been another crazy 365 days and there has been some ups and downs throughout the nation, but what about here locally?

Overall, we thought it was a good year on the West Plains. The city of Cheney did a good job with repaving the roads in town. The city also hosted the 50th annual Cheney Rodeo, which was a big milestone for the event. It was nice to see the historic Northern Pacific Depot moving forward in getting relocated along with the old Cheney High School building’s remodel into the School House Lofts apartments turning out really nice.

Over in Medical Lake, Re*Imagine Medical Lake has taken full control and has done a good job with finding volunteers that solidified Founder’s Day. It has been a positive thing for the city and they have done a good job at creating a sense of community and excitement. The boosters in the town also did a solid job during the year and surpassed their goal at the high school’s Grapes and Hops fundraiser.

Then in Airway Heights, the city did a great job involving the community. Parks and Recreation department worked really hard this year on making sure the recreation center was on track for the city and has taken pride in it. The work seemed to have a bring of community to a place that needs one.

But even though it was an overall good year on the West Plains, it could be even better with some extra effort.

We hope to see in the coming year more people involved with the cities and making their voices heard. Imagine how much could get done if citizens showed up to city council or planning commission meetings. The people in charge could see what the town wants more and maybe make more of a difference for those involved.

Another thing we would like to see is people becoming more aware of things going on in their respective city. In reality, if they showed up to the meetings they would most likely know more about what is going on just from attending.

Just a thought.

One example we thought of where being more informed was needed was with water. It is going to be an issue for years to come, so it would be beneficial if everyone knew more about it.

Not only do people need to be more informed, but they need to find good reliable sources — maybe even their local paper?

Instead of wanting just the quick synopsis story that you can read within 30 seconds, we should be taking the time to sit down and indulge ourselves with the information being provided about issues around us, whether it is water, rezones or just the school board.

One thing we found disappointing this year in the community was the low turnout of candidates for elected offices. Medical Lake was the only city to have competitive races, and between Cheney and Airway Heights there were only two contested races combined.

If more people ran for office, we could see more change and different voices would be heard. Even if you don’t think you would win, you should still run because then we can hear each side of what people want to do and why they are running. This is one way voters could become more informed and make better decisions for their city.

So even though we saw good things come out of 2017 in the West Plains, we should try to be even better in the next year and even years to come. We have so much potential and we could just be hitting the tip of the iceberg.