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Weekly Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Ward County, Trans Pecos, Big Bend of West Texas
Opinion
Jan. 28, 1999
National news is also local
By Joe Warren
1998 was a very busy year in Ward County and Monahans.
It was also a very busy year at The Monahans News.
We had two meteorites land in Monahans that made national
and international news. We elected two new commissioners, a
county judge and county clerk. We saved a hospital and a
golf course. We had a football team go to the state
semifinals. We saw improvments downtown. We hired a new
chamber director. We started and nearly completed
improvments at the Sandhills State Park. The Permian Basin
Drug Task Force was replaced by the state run DPS Task Force.
A lot of news happened in Ward County last year and we were
here to cover it. At The Monahans news our focus will always
be to bring you honest and objective coverage of the events
that happen in our county.
I am proud of our news coverage and the year we had at the
paper.
Our focus for 1999 will remain the same. We will continue to
bring you all of the news that happens in Ward County. We
will continue to promote projects and our community. We will
continue to bring you local columns and editorials.
We won general excellence at the 1998 Texas Press
association making us, according to our peers, the best
weekly of our size in the state, and have improved since
then.
Our focus is not awards, they are nice to win but winning
your confidence and respect as being your source for news
and shopping is hands down better than any plaque the Texas
Press Association could ever give us.
We have put together a great team at The Monaahans News and
are ready for the new year and what ever it brings.
If we win another award at the Texas Press Association that
will be fine, but you are and will always be our focus at
the paper this year and all the years to come. Good luck and
happy New Year to all of our readers.
Our View
Reif manufacturing closing down
On Monday the employees of Reif Manufacturing were told that
they were shutting the plant down. The managers will be out
by Friday. This is a traumatic thing to happen to the people
that worked there and the area.
What we need to do now as a community, is to look at the
positive in this and examine the facts. When we were
recruiting Reif to open a branch of their company in
Monahans, the Economic Development Corporation did a very
good job in making sure our money was spent wisely.
ItÆs a fact that we spent $1700 to $1800 per job for this
deal when other communities in Texas spend from $75,000 to
$150,000.
ItÆs a fact that we were successful in recruiting a non oil
field business to Monahans.
ItÆs a fact that Reif stood to be a good employer in the
growth mode.
ItÆs a fact that this deal was a benchmark for this area
proving us as a community, to be in the diversification
mode. We need to stay and will stay in that mode.
Plain and simple the Reif deal was a good deal for Monahans.
We never like to see any business close its doors in our
community. But we also realize it happens from time to time.
Rest assured, we whole-hardily support the efforts of the
EDC and all of the hard work they do. The board is made up
of some very smart local business people looking to
diversify our community. Mark Gatzki, Charles Wade, Curt
Howard, Elidia OÆHarrow and Mike Fletcher are always working
hard to find and recruit new business in a very competitive
arena.
We also have a very hard working Economic Development
Director in Rick Taylor. Taylor just got back from a nine
day trip around the state and came back feeling very
positive about three and maybe four companies looking at our
city. Taylor is also excited about a major company
interested in Monahans that approached us, and in the
economic development world that is very positive.
Bottom line is, that if we want to diversify and survive ten
years from now, we need the EDC and all of their efforts.
Monahans has an excellent director and a wonderfully
talented board doing everything they can to ensure us a
future with plenty of diversity - a continued place for our
younger citizens to come back to with plenty of good jobs
for them.
Monahans has a lot to offer a potential company looking to
relocate or start up. We have a good tax base, good utility
rates, very trainable, excellent work force, can-do people,
great schools and educators. We are in the diversification
mode, we have great water, good access to the railroad and a
major interstate and probably the friendliest people in the
world.
We have several things going for us when we look at the
future of our community. At the News, we feel at ease with
our future in Monahans and itÆs our view that our leaders
are doing everything to ensure that we will diversify and
progress and keep on doing so. We stand by the EDC and know
they are doing everything in their power to recruit new
business to our part of the world.
Ward Newspapers, Inc.
Joe Warren, Publisher
107 W. Second St., Monahans TX 79756
Phone 915-943-4313, FAX 915-943-4314
e-mail monnews@ultravision.net
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 1999 by Ward Newspapers Inc.
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