To my surprise and horror, the city of Becker has no vision statement? How can that be? How can it be 2015 and the city of Becker still does not have a simple vision of where it intends to be in 10 years? 

 

How can you lead a city when you don’t know where you are leading it to? How do you know where you are going if you have no plan on how to get there? All the money spent on golf course studies and highway 10 corridor studies and for what? There is an old saying- “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. When I read the paper and the waste of money spent on “consultants”, the bickering at city council meetings, and the lack of any vision, it is clear to me the city of Becker’s plan is to limp along and be a mediocre or subpar Minnesota city. 

I left the meeting feeling a sense of shock and loss. Yes - loss. Loss at what could be. 

 

Why do most young families move to Becker? Answer: the schools. Why do most people leave Becker? Answer: because there is nothing else to stay for! Becker has become a city to raise children and then move away once they are out of school because there is nothing else to stay for. Even when you move here to raise your kids for the schools, how many of us leave the city to buy groceries, hardware, and other things in some other cities besides Becker?

 

I am not saying I have the “vision” for Becker but instead of spending our tax payer dollars on “consultants” to tell us residents what we want, how about we do a comprehensive study of  ALL residents to say what kind of city we want to live in? What do I mean? Well, for one the downtown corridor is a mess. Becker has no main street, just a series of broken streets cobbled together and linked by tiny strip malls, gas stations, and grubby looking buildings that never seemed to get updated by their owners. 

 

What better way to build a city that is the envy of every other Minnesota city than to ask the Becker residents, themselves, what kind of attributes the city they live in should have? How much can it cost to send a questionnaire to every household in Becker?

 

My personal vision for Becker is to see a main street developed. Link Bank street and second street. Create wide sidewalks complete with benches, flowers, angled parking, a town square by the Becker township gazebo, a place where bands could play on a Friday night in the summer, a place where people could picnic and meet down town, a vibrant down town where businesses would want to come and anchor because of the booming foot traffic. And speaking of traffic, when folks stop in Becker, they stop at a gas station and stretch their legs, fill up gas and take off again. Would these people stay longer if they could browse a very cute and well laid out down town? I think so!

 

I am confident that “if” the city focuses on being the best city to live in the state of Minnesota, the rest of our problems are solved. No more golf course studies, no more corridor studies, and much less bickering at meeting because we would all be on the same page- one vision- one direction.

 

We have been lost for decades. Who on this city council will have the courage to at a bare minimum, create a vision, so the city of Becker can be found?