The Christmas season is here and collectively, the Ely community is in need of some help.
The Ely School District is hemorrhaging both students and money and faces the real danger of statutory operating debt.
Our hospital lost over $1 million last year and faces its own money struggles.
Up at Vermilion Community College, financial woes have prompted budget reductions and early retirement incentives.
In addition to these community pillars, overall it just isn’t easy to maintain, much less grow, a business in Ely.
There’s no magic bullet, no immediate solution and nothing that will result in a rapid turnaround of our community’s fortunes.
But if we could have anything in our collective, community Christmas stocking, there’s one thing that would go a long way in helping.
More good-paying, family-sustaining jobs. That’s a common denominator that will help all the way around in improving our fortunes.
The ability to have a good-paying job here makes it easier to raise a family here, which, of course, in turn will help our school district reverse the troubling tide of student enrollment declines.
We need more jobs, whether it’s old mining and, yes, new mining, more folks who can work from home and make Ely their home, more public sector and private sector jobs.
On the public side, we recall the days when 100 or more state jobs were housed in Ely at not one, but two buildings in Ely’s business park.
Of course Covid-19 changed that and those folks are now working from home.
But here’s a legitimate question: one that should be followed up on by the city of Ely, its economic development arm, our state legislators, as well as the lobbyists the city has retained.
What’s the job total now compared to, say five or 10 years ago?
Has the Department of Revenue filled jobs that have been vacated by retirement, resignation or folks moving away, and if so, why not?
At one point, there was state statute requiring a certain number of jobs to be located here.
Is anyone following up and making sure the state is holding up its end of the bargain?
Covid-19 has passed, and there’s no reason anymore for the state to use that as an excuse.
Another 10, 20, even 30 state jobs would be a boon to Ely, whether those folks work at home or whether the city-owned Revenue Building needs to be altered or expanded in order to make it work.
There was a time when city officials all but browbeat legislators and state agency leaders to bring more state jobs to Ely.
That needs to happen again and is one part of the roadmap back to economic success in our town.
Perhaps Santa can deliver that for us this year.
