People in Waynesboro dreaming of Costco, Hobby Lobby, Olive Garden: you need to get your heads out of your asses.
First, here’s the story, in the News Virginian, which surveyed readers on what they want in and around Waynesboro.
Nice effort. Can’t fault the folks at the paper for that.
If you don’t want to scroll through, and seriously, I recommend it, because the utter lack of self-awareness on the part of those who responded is hilarious, I’ll cut to the chase: people here want chain stores and restaurants like they have in big cities.
Let me be the bad guy here: Cheesecake Factory ain’t comin’ to a 20,000-resident city that has to lay teachers off and can’t afford to pay its cops a living wage.
Do I need to be more specific?
You’ve voted for successive city councils that have enacted policies to keep things as bare bones as possible so that you don’t have to pay more than the minimum in taxes.
The schools are subpar, the infrastructure is crumbling.
The only thing we have going for us is an interstate exit that’s been developed to the hilt as it is.
The result is an economy where the best jobs are on either side of the interstate involving folding sweaters at the Kohl’s and Target or waiting tables at the Applebee’s.
News flash: we’ve got what we’re getting.
The higher-end chains don’t locate in cities where people who live there don’t have money to spend.
It hurts to hear this, I’m sure, but there aren’t enough people with money to spend to sustain what we already have.
Our economy is based on getting people to drive over from western Albemarle County because Waynesboro is easier to get to than Charlottesville.
If Dave & Buster’s is thinking anything, it’s Charlottesville, not Waynesboro.
The story in the paper listed 15 things that readers supposedly want.
Leaders with a semblance of backbone didn’t make the list.
Story by Chris Graham
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