In my first piece on “Crossing the Chasm” I laid out the fundamental definition as what it meant to “cross the chasm” and the areas I see as instrumental for redefining our Central Oregon economy. Unwittingly the second area I referred to in my initial piece was: Crossing the Chasm – Part 2: Government. I say unwittingly because we are in the midst of a transformative period that has created strong opinions, as well as fear, as to the role of Government in our society. I am a fundamental believer that Government is not the solution to our problems, but it is part of the solution. Indeed, depending upon the era, the situations, the issues at hand, Government I believe, can act much like a faucet – sometimes you need more water, other times less, and then, in between, we need to vary the temperature accordingly. It is not a black and white issue as many would like to paint, or rather, it is not so simple as “Less Government vs. More Government”. That fundamentally dumbs down the details into nothing more than a beer commercial that, perhaps, the under-average voter can consume. I do believe that, as President Obama discussed in a recent speech, that Government can be a “catalyst”.
But what does that mean to be a catalyst for our local government? What can our local government do? Where do we start? Let me simply outline what I would consider to be some of the low-hanging fruit that we can tackle within the Government of our own community.
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