What issues are you concerned about ?

A question from the Facebook page, Concerned Citizens of Chatham. What dear readers say you?

I can always tell you what I'm concerned about:

1. Economic development and jobs
2. Education
3. Crime

Economic development and jobs go hand in hand. Right now we're not living in the idea environment for economic growth. The city can't seem to move very fast on bringing in that second Wal-Mart with many people wishing that Wal-Mart would pay their workers a living wage. Also things aren't helped by rising taxes especially sales taxes, I hear that the city isn't bring in the money it expected by raising taxes on bottled water.

Education is important and may even go hand in hand with crime. If the schools aren't doing their job in getting our young people ready for either the "real world" or college then who knows what type of trouble they'll allow themselves to get into. They may engage in criminal activity or otherwise they won't be as productive as we wish they were.

Every now and then we do crime stories. Early on I tried to avoid them, but they are a fact of life. The quality of life most of us know here in the 6th as far as the general look and reputation of our communities is impacted when someone brings a gun not for their own use or protect, but when they use their gun for ill such as shooting police officers or using a gun in the commission of a crime. That's just one example, although let's be honest here crime will certainly be a difficult problem to solve we can't just incarcerate people and someone out there will always be up to no good, whatever that is.

What might be your issues that you're concerned about, especially in terms of what's going on in the ward? Leave a comment or send an e-mail, if you send an e-mail comment is subject to publication.