Interview with Retired Railway Worker

With that Pittsburgh State, with that via Christie and the Crawford County Health Center, which has really dramatically grown and going to grow more. So, Pittsburgh is positioned very, very well in this part of Southeast Kansas. It's going to grow. It's not going to grow dramatically. I don't believe you can't grow without jobs. We are at a disadvantage tax wise. Our taxes are higher than they are four miles away. Missouri has sales tax holidays for schools. They have less taxes on food. All of those things that their property taxes are less. So, there's benefits for people to live in Missouri. There's quite a few people from Pitt State that live in Missouri. And so, you can live wherever you want. I mean, you can live on Mars if that's your choice, but you should participate in some of the taxes here. I lived in Overland Park for probably 2020, 23 or 4 or 5 years. I worked in downtown Kansas, Missouri and I paid a Kansas City, Missouri earnings tax. I chose to do that. And so, if you use the facilities, there ought to be some way to participate in the payments and the maintenance of them. So, I think that's something that should be looked at. I think two or three years Pittsburgh will finish block 22. Block 22, I think, even a year ago, people thought it was a

lot of people felt it was not a good decision. I think most people have changed their mind. A lot of those buildings, probably most of them, would have been torn down if something hadn't been done. No one would have put the money in private money to go in there. There's just no return. It had to be a public-private entity. Pitt State and the city, and I think the county, and a number of people have put money in there.