For those who don’t know what the National League of Cities is I would like to give a brief description of one of the latest programs that it is infiltrating city governments with. It is the prescription drug benefit, allowing you to save 20% off prescriptions purchased at CVS. It will cost the city almost $4,000 annual to join. Sounds like a nice idea, right? What kind of message are we sending Target, WalGreens, HEB, etc if the city council approves this. Are we not sending a clear message that the city is promoting one business (CVS) over the others?
Not to mention whether this will really a benefit to the citizens. What if I choose not to go to CVS, so I am going to be penalized for going to HEB, with whom I think is a much valuable business partner for Kyle?
While the idea sounds nice, it is counter productive to Kyle’s aspirations to attract good businesses. I spoke with a gentleman from California during one of September’s council meetings. He was contemplating bringing his business to Kyle. He attends council meetings to help him decide whether to expand his business to that community or not. Afterward, he was not very impressed with our council, and said that he would not likely bring his business to Kyle. He had some fairly critical things to say about our city council.
Ironically, he and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Yet, we both saw things the same way when it came to the direction of Kyle. Please do not mis-judge my intentions. I am not trying to criticize council. Rather, I want to suggest another way. Council is so distracted with personal agendas and they are forgetting about the basic needs of the community and the role they should play. Council should focus on balancing the budget, keeping taxes low, and improving infrastructure. They should stop messing around with all of the “fluff” that makes a few people feel good, but really accomplishes nothing. Joining the National League of Cities does in fact seem to be a conflict to the direction most would like to see this community go. Do we really want to alienate some of our most trusted partners like HEB by espousing a program that promotes one business over the other? The answer is simple, No!
Ronald Sherman
Kyle
