When the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and decided to form their own country, they intended that the United States of America be governed by the people.
In order to accomplish the goals set forth in the Vision 2020 document for Angelina County, the people need a way to get their message and wants to the members of government whose actions can make things happen for the people.
Without the government division of Vision 2020, most of the other divisions could not accomplish their goals. It's the job of those involved in this section to take the requests of various Vision 2020 heads to the right people in the political sphere and to make Lufkin and Angelina County a place congressmen, senators and other politicians know and love.
Trent Ashby, former chair of the Government sector of Vision 2020, recently surrendered his position to Craig Walker in order to allow someone else the chance to have a leadership role in the process. However, Ashby took the time to go over some of the main goals Walker and others involved would continue working on.
"I believe the only way to improve the quality of life is to take an active role in fostering these ideas and helping to see them come to fruition," Ashby said. "So many people participated in developing our goals and it's just satisfying to see that many of them are still currently working on the fulfillment of these objectives."
The main focus of the government sector right now has been obtaining metropolitan area by the next census in 2010. This means a minimum population of 50,000 as opposed to the 38,726 population the city held in 2000.
By the end of February, Lufkin will have sent all local updated census addresses, also known as LUCA, to the census bureau. LUCA helps the census bureau know where residents are living, new subdivisions, new roads and new infrastructure so that census forms will be sent out to all the correct addresses.
"The LUCA program is a critical initiative for communities in ensuring the residents are counted accurately," Ashby said.
Between now and the next census in 2010, members of the government sector of Vision 2020 will do everything they can to educate all residents of Angelina County how important it is to make sure they are counted and fill out the census form.
Ashby and others involved in the process believe that Angelina County has seen a lot of residential growth and several residents were not counted in the 2000 census, including several minorities who may not have received a form in the mail or who didn't fill it out.
Once MSA status has been achieved the community will be added to a list, which most companies use to find communities which are growing and have enough workers for the company to settle there.
"If you're not on that MSA list, many times you're not even in consideration because you never reach the radar screen so to speak," Ashby said.
Achieving MSA status would also allow Angelina County to have its own Community Development Block Grant. The funds from this grant are based on need. At its current population status, Angelina County has to compete with 11 other counties for these funds. Many times the other counties will receive the funds before Angelina County since the government sees their needs as being higher than Angelina County.
Although achieving MSA status has been pushed to the top of the list of things Vision 2020 members hope to accomplish, other goals have are already well on their way to being accomplished. For one, efforts to communicate needs with local, state and federal government officials have already moved forward some Vision 2020 initiatives, including a regional mental health facility for the county.
"A bill was passed that set up a program where we could come together as a region and work to try to express the need for a regional health care facility and apply for some funding that was set aside for a limited number of projects," Ashby said.
Last year, Angelina County created a community wide priority list of legislative initiatives which were brought before officials in Austin and Washington. Ashby foresees another list created for mid year for the next legislative session.
"We want them to know what is in the Vision 2020 document, what our short and long term goals are as a community," Ashby said.
The mental health care facility is just one of several examples of how the priority list has worked well in Austin and Washington. The next goal on the facility will be to make sure legislators continue to help fund the facility instead of just giving them money to start it.
"We've been advocating something and in this case we've seen good results," Ashby said. "We work to better our relationships so they know who we are and we can pick up the phone and call them and they can say 'I've been there' or they know who they're talking to."
