Maricopa Chamber Director’s Blog

Jul 6

Exporting Maricopa’s Opportunities

Filed Under General

Last modified: July 6, 2007

Shop def; –verb to visit shops and stores for purchasing or examining goods, to seek or examine goods, property, etc., offered for sale
Local def; adjective pertaining to a city, town, or small district rather than an entire state or country

These two small words mean a lot in our city where every local service and retail establishment counts on community support to stoke the fires of progress, rather than taking economic opportunities away from the community lets SHOP LOCAL!

Independent businesses raise the standard of living in our community because they take their profits and buy products and services from other local businesses, thus creating more and more tax revenues needed for the community to thrive.

Here at the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce we pride ourselves on “walking the talk” and believe that each and every one of us who has a support position within the community should strive to make this sentiment more than lip service, but a way of life, I know I have. After all, isn’t our goal to grow our city into a strong, self-sustaining community rooted in home-grown business talent? Of course, and the way to achieve this is by adopting a shop local attitude.

Why is this important?

Imagine, for example, if our local government needed a hammer and they went outside the city to find it. What kind of message would that send to local merchants and residents? The message would be that there is no place in town to purchase such a beating device and that local business is not worth supporting.

Not only would it take tax dollars out of the community, which could impact the growth of our infrastructure thus slowing the overall growth of Maricopa. That would be irresponsible on the part of our local government.

Now, I am a realist and know that there are a few services we are lacking, but if we could just get into the mind frame of looking local FIRST then these services will come faster. Just look at the growth over the last year or two. We have gone from having only Bashas’ to having Bashas’ and Fry’s, from having no fast food to having an abundance of fast food and so on. Thus is the law of “supply & demand.”

You have a choice of where to spend your hard-earned dollars, and we want to encourage you to “put your money where your house is.” Did you know that when you shop locally-owned businesses, your money is re-circulated over and over and creates up to 75% more tax revenue to our community and state, also when you shop at a locally owned business, 45 cents of every dollar stays in state - versus only 13 cents of every dollar spent at a national chain!

The choice is yours. You have the power to strengthen and enrich our community!

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE WITH A FEW SIMPLE STEPS
• Make a decision to find and patronize a locally-owned business, wherever possible.
• Dine at a local, independent restaurant and treat yourself to a unique and personal dining experience.
• Use the Chamber Directory to locate businesses offering specific goods or services.
If you still do not know where to find a particular product or service, please feel free to contact me and I will help you find what you are looking for.

Tell your associates, family, and friends to shop local and why. We all have a stake in our community. Let’s create strong and vibrant community and set the example for those who follow.

Maricopa ROCKS!

Jul 6

I Could not have said this better myself

Filed Under General

Last modified: July 6, 2007

Although I did not write the following or know who did the Passion and Spirit behind the words are commendable. I want you on my team! SORRY IT IS A LITTLE LONG….

People who complain about Maricopa.

Are you serious? Did I really just come across a thread started because people have nothing better to do than to complain about complaining? What planet am I on???
The fact that everyone made a choice to move here and now in spite of all the GREAT things about the community, just want to complain. I mean really. This won’t be a popular response, but it doesn’t have to be. This thread actually kind of makes me sick.

You (meaning all of you - “you” being non specific) moved to a community that was a cotton field less than 1000 days ago, and you’re complaining about “lack of infrastructure”. Are you kidding? I mean really - did you expect Wal-Mart, Target, some five star restaurants, a movie theater or two, a winery, the world’s finest landscaping crews, a super mall, the world’s finest flawless police service, and a four-star prep school to move out here, set the place up for you, pave the streets in gold, then roll out the red carpet with a big neon sign “welcome home buyers!”? Heck, maybe they could even get AC/DC to headline the grand opening of the city? Just for you? All in your honor? Is that really what you expected?

And you planned to complain about your property taxes along the way?

Get a grip! Good grief! Get a sense of reality here.

You got an AWESOME house (all of you!) for pennies on the dollar of what it would cost to live any place else. Did you not realize you were moving to the middle of the desert backed directly up to a few thousand head of cattle and a railroad track when you purchased your home? Did anyone roll into town beyond the model home signs before signing their builder contracts? Anyone?

If you purchased a home 100 ft. from a major rail line - then I don’t want to hear a peep out of you about the train horns. Did you even peek over the fence before staking out your lot? I have absolutely not even the slightest inkling of sympathy for you. None. Zip. Zero.

And that’s not even the sad part.

The worst part - what really digs me - is that people put their effort into complaining as if it’s someone else’s job to hand them an oasis on a platter. Wrong. It’s not someone else’s job to make this community great - it’s YOUR job. Yes, YOU the individual person behind the keyboard.

This community can grow into something great, and it’s up to YOU to make it happen. What a sense of entitlement some people have! It floors me! It’s NOT someone else’s job to make your world perfect - it’s YOUR job. Do you expect the ‘perfect world police’ to come in an fluff your pillow every night for you also? Are you insane?

You’re going to sit and gripe and complain while (most people anyway) doing nothing to fix the problem other than complaining about it while dragging down the overall moral of the others.

You want children’s events? Then get up and organize something. GET INVOLVED.

You don’t like the city council? Then GET INVOLVED and fix it.

You don’t like the schools? Then GET INVOLVED and fix them. Don’t gripe on a web forum - go out and knock on all the doors of all the kids in the school system, explain your problem to the other parents, get them behind you, and the whole lot of you can go directly to the school board (and those who give them their money) and hold their hand while correcting your problem. That’s not “your job” but that’s the way it is. Now suck it up and go fix it.

You don’t like the litter? Then GET INVOLVED and organize a clean up and get out there and lead by example and pick it up. Complaining isn’t going to cause the trash to get up and hop into a dumpster on its own, and it’s not likely to motivate anyone else to pick it up for you either. Start a movement and others will follow.

Really, honestly - while you all sit there in your air conditioned houses that cost pennies on the dollar and point fingers griping about how badly the town is being run - how many city council meetings have YOU gone to?

You want youth sports? Have you chatted with the folks running the little league and set out to organize a similar formation of another sort of sport? Have you been told “no”? By who? Have you brought that directly to the attention of the city council and others here on the forum? How many others have you organized to show up along side you at the next city council meeting to remind them that this issue is important? Certainly you have done all of this if you’re complaining about the problem - you’ve peaked my interest. You tell me when the “moms for better youth sports” movement is sitting on the next city council meeting and I’ll be there along side you. Surely you have the date marked in red on your calendar?

The trash? Yea, it’s sick. I agree. Turns my stomach every time I drive through town. I have yet to see anyone pick it up. I’m sure if you organized 100 or so people to pick it up, while holding big banners requesting others to get involved - I’m absolutely positive - the city wouldn’t stop you. If every person who complained about the trash would stop and pick up a piece or two, we wouldn’t have a trash problem. So make it happen, I hereby nominate YOU as the head of the new Maricopa City Citizen Trash Watch. The MCCTW - there ya go, an organization name and everything - you should now be all set to get the ball rolling on this. Thanks in advance for your participation and service.

You’re upset that Fry’s is too busy? Are you serious??? Really?? Be glad you’ve got a packed out grocery store 5 minutes from your driveway!! Be glad you don’t have to drag 45 minutes across the desert and wait in line for 10 hours in the heat for a loaf of bread. Turn on the news once in a while. It’s NO WONDER the rest of the world hates us beyond words. All the food you could eat in a lifetime and you’re going to complain there are too many other people there??? WOW! That absolutely floors me. I don’t even know how to respond. That comment hits me like a punch in the nose. More food than you could eat in a lifetime - and you’re complaining about it? Did you even think about that comment before posting it?

I am so sick of hearing people complain in this town. There are SO many of us and the problems are so relatively small that if we put some of the effort of griping into making some progress to fix the problems, the problems would be solved. Nothing great has ever happened in this world as a result of someone complaining about it.

You - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU - are living like royalty on a throne compared to 99.999% of the people alive on this planet right now, and you’re complaining about it. Now slap yourself and think about that.

You don’t like the 347? Then move. Bye. I won’t miss you. Leave here and go to some place that doesn’t have a 347. Maybe if you were lucky enough to live in some bombed out 3rd world country you wouldn’t be cursed with owning a car and then you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Be glad those wear marks in the road represent the goods and services that gave rise your mansion of a house from the dirt and allow you to work in metro and live out here in peace and quiet. Be glad those wear marks are the result of commerce traffic and not bomb craters where some of your very own friends and family have lost their lives.

Get over yourself!

Turn on the news sometime and see what real people have to deal with outside the bubble of your personal MacMansion - go hunt some of those folks down and you tell them just how bad you have it. See if they care. Take a trip to the real barrio in Mexico and watch a family of 4 living in half of a rotted out camper shell. You go down there and tell them how crappy your water company is. I’m sure they’ll let you cry on their shoulder. You’ve got it so rough.

And let me guess, after complaining about how awful it is here, you’re going to turn right straight around and complain about your property values also, right? Like you’re scratching your head that nobody wants to move here? Why could that be???

If you want to complain, go right ahead, but I also fully expect you to detail exactly what you personally have done to address your problem, and what exactly you’ve done constructively to gather others around you with a similar problem and what exactly you’ve done to further the cause of the issue for the rest of us.

If complaining is as far as you’ve gotten, then by all means, please - just keep the complaint to yourself.

Let me do some leg work for you….

You can address your complaints about the water company here:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200706040830.html

or here
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=59809

or here
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1944334,00.html

or here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/29/wsumm129.xml

You can address your complains about the 347 here:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/ap/20070622/img/pwl-iraq-attack-28544fd-add9500fe4250.html

or here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6999256

or to this guy
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000069.php

or here
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264471,00.html

or to this lady
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/5294304.stm

or to this family
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_19990326/ai_n10479734

And for those of you getting screwed waiting more than 5 minutes to check out in the zippy lane at Fry’s - these kids are standing by awaiting your complaints:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4695355.stm

and these people
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/hunger/relief/2006/0107foodcrisis.htm

as well as this mother and her child
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72720

So now that we have a little perspective, now that we’ve peered into the lives of other real people for a minute, can we maybe - possibly - go a week without complaining about what an awful hell hole Maricopa is, how we’re all imprisoned here, and how we’re all kept here against our will? The next time you’re compelled to complain, can you maybe just bite your tongue?

And seriously everyone - I don’t mean to ruffle everyone’s feathers, but really, honestly, get a gut check - and realize that if this city goes down as a dump, it will be because it’s residents allowed it to. And if it becomes a great vibrant thriving family friendly community - it will be because its residents stood up, got involved, and made it happen.

That’s the best part of seeing no infrastructure here - it’s having the vision of the future of the town - a town we all (hopefully?) can create together. We’ve got a blank slate here and we can collectively draw the picture any way we like. Quit spitting on the canvas.