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"For
state officials, creating rural development programs is like eating
potato chips, they can’t stop with just one," noted Associated
Press writer Phillip Rawls in an article during the summer.
Rawls
pointed out that Republican Gov. Bob Riley created a rural development
program and named Gerald Dial, a former state senator who supported him
in his reelection campaign to direct it.
The
Democrat-controlled Legislature, in turn, created a similar program—that
one supervised by Ron Sparks, Alabama’s commissioner of agriculture.
Can
too much of a good thing go too far? That seems to be the question these
days as leaders of a state with 67 counties ponder ways to resuscitate
its rural regions.
Named
earlier this year by Sparks to become director of The Center for Rural
Alabama, Lee finds himself doing a lot of reading, researching and
remembering his own formative years before coming up with any solutions
to the problem.
He’s
no stranger to the continuing dilemma because he and Joe Sumner, who
directs the Economic and Community Development Institute in Auburn, have
written extensively about the situation.
In
one of his reports, Lee quoted former Alabama journalist Jonathan McElvy,
who said: "If every person who has ever participated in a
commission or study or a task force related to this region put $5 in a
pot, we’d probably have enough money to build our own Hyundai
plant."
At
the time, McElvy was publisher of a newspaper in Marengo County, but his
comments were relevant because they applied to the rest of Alabama where
country living isn’t quite what it used to be.
In
addition to rural study groups led by a former legislator and Lee, who
had directed a couple of regional planning organizations in the past,
Alabama also has a Black Belt Action Commission, which, coincidentally,
includes Marengo County.
In
the summer of 2006, Sumner’s organization sponsored an "Alabama
Rural Roundtable" which sought to solicit ideas from leaders who
live in the affected areas of the state.
The
event attracted 55 rural leaders who helped to identify priorities and
strategies, among them being (1) Leadership and Citizen Participation,
(2) Infrastructure and Communications Technology and (3) Education and
Workforce Development.
Some
of the Roundtable group complained of inadequate preparation of new
leaders, limited opportunities for citizen involvement, a lack of
diversity among leaders and strong resistance to change.
Other
areas of interest included lack of adequate transportation, training and
education to bring rural Alabama into the 21st century.
One
of the priority items of the Black Belt Action Commission is development
of an extension to Interstate 85 which ends in Montgomery.
U.S.
Sen. Richard Shelby has helped push through millions of dollars to
launch an extensive study of the proposed project. Eventually, a
decision will be made on which direction to take for the I-85 extension
that will cost billions to construct to reach the Mississippi line.
Industrial
development isn’t the only focus of these organizations. Health care,
education and other areas of concern are all under the big umbrella of
"Rural Alabama."
Lee
and Sumner collaborated on: "Beyond the Interstate: The Crisis in
Rural Alabama." In it, they point out many of the problems
impacting areas outside the state’s industrialized urban areas.
Their
report, written for Auburn University, makes the point that rural
development needs in Alabama have not been adequately addressed.
"At
the local level," the report said, "rural communities must
learn to join forces and work together, take steps to improve local
quality of life, build local leadership capacity and diversity their
development strategies."
On
the surface, it may sound like just another long-winded proposal, but
Lee and Sumner back up their paper with extensive research to prove
their point.
They
pointed out that, in 2000, the Alabama Commerce Commission
reported "there are two Alabamas, one urban and one rural."
That
wasn’t much of a surprise, but the commission went into great detail
to underline its concerns that urban Alabama "is enjoying relative
success although there are deeply distressed pockets" within those
cities. Rural Alabama, the study showed, "is making little or no
progress."
The
old saying about talk being cheap also made its way into the report
prepared by Lee and Sumner. The two said action, not words, should be on
the lips of everyone in a decision-making position in Alabama.
One
way to awaken Alabama’s rural regions is for the state to create its
own rural development council, the two said. They said 40 states,
including many in the South, have established their own councils in an
effort to reap benefits from the National Rural Development Partnership
which dispenses advice and, most importantly, money to various rural
improvement agencies.
Lee
and Sumner said creation of yet another rural development organization
would go a long way in eliminating duplication while, at the same time,
work on increasing accountability.
"A
key goal of state councils is to enhance cooperation and collaboration
on rural issues across program and governmental boundaries," their
report said. "This is achieved by facilitating more effective
communication among various institutions involved in rural
development."
The
University of Alabama’s ongoing effort to supply trained physicians
for rural regions of the state is an illustration that progress is being
made in some areas.
The
UA College of Community Health Sciences, created in 1972, has had the
same mission since its founding—developing an educational pipeline in
which bright students from rural regions can return there after they
finish their medical training to help those most in need.
Then,
there is the Alabama Rural Transit Assistance Program which began in
1986 as part of the Surface Transportation Act to provide training,
technical assistance and research activities to improve rural transit
service.
Most
Alabamians have their own cars, trucks and vans to get about. It’s
hard to believe there are still many rural residents who lack such basic
transportation and rely on assistance to get to hospitals, shopping
areas and, most importantly, jobs.
On
the federal level, Steve Pelham supervises the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Rural Development program—another organization that
doles out funding to a variety of recipients across the state’s rural
regions.
The
bottom line in all of these organizations is to help rural Alabama solve
its many problems, one of which is duplication since it appears so many
are overlapping each other.
Alvin
Benn is a freelance writer from Selma. |
