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“I just hope that what we’ve done
today, that somebody will listen,” one dialogue participant said
as the camera rolled.
But government may already be doing
more than they think...
Responding
to dialogue findings, Carolina Jimenez-Hogg, Fresno County
Planning Director, said “we are doing these things even if we
are using different words. There are areas where the public does
not understand. Finance is not understood. We want these things
but we don’t want to pay taxes.”
“People
didn’t know,” she said. “We are doing the right things, but
we need to work on engagement.”
League
of Women Voters member Janet Ryan replied that government “must
present numbers to us in a way we can understand it.”
Tom
Krazan, a local business man, wondered aloud if the problem was a
“lack of understanding or a lack of creativity" in getting
the word out, and that perhaps government needs to focus more on
its outreach efforts.
Fresno
Business Council Chairman Richard Johanson added that “We often
hear talk about the need for bringing higher-wage jobs into the
area. I think that’s a noble and desired end. But to get there,
the word unemployed needs to be redefined as unemployable. I think
folks sense that we have to have people qualified to fill those
better paying jobs.” This ties back to the need for better
schools for long-range job and career development, and ultimately
for community improvement.
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