Today's Opinions

One year ago, as we all came back to work fresh off a three-day holiday weekend one of our community’s was in mourning.

A shooting in Martinsville, on the heels of the neighborhood’s annual Labor Day events, left many in shock and awe that such an event would happen as the day’s festivities had just wound down.

At that point it would have been easy for the residents to pack up their parade and get together. They could have used the shooting as a reason to give up on the long established Shelbyville neighborhood.

Last week we attended a meeting put together by the Shelby County Community Foundation and Metro United Way and we must say we were pleased and surprised.

Pleased because assessing the needs of a community is not only a massive undertaking it is also a somewhat thankless job.

As Leon Mooneyhan, CEO of the Ohio Valley Education Cooperative and member of both the SCCF and Shelbyville Metro United Way boards, put it, ““The expectation isn’t that this is all of the needs, but it’s a significant start.”

This week we see the final two local government entities have hearings to set the property tax rates for 2016, and what we’re seeing is very exciting.

All four entities refrained from raising taxes as we are finally seeing our local economy making a rebound.

This is the third straight year we’ve seen no increases, and even the second year in a row we have watched as one entity, Simpsonville City Commission, has lowered its tax rate due to its vast commercial growth.