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Thursday, July 25, 2019

So, just where are we going, Cheyenne?

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill
Of hope for a destination
I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood
Of man for whatever that means

And so I cry sometimes
When I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What’s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs,
“What’s going on?!”
             --“What’s Up” 4 Non Blondes

BY MADGE MIDGELY
I have been off of Facebook for some months.
It was my source of local relation and information about the microcosm I live within.
It was my way to know about social happenings and city evolutions.
It was the place of the updates about my up-and-coming 20th high school reunion.
I wonder if I threw away a useful network.
Now it’s just me and the people who are in direct contact with my daily life with no pretense.
Now it is me and animals and vegetation and GMA.
These recent days have been full of insight that comes in sparingly in regard to outside parties. But it hasn’t stopped the insights I have been pulling in and building since before the FB exodus.

What the hell is happening in my town?
Oh, just The Story of Old in a New Digital Era.
I am on Twitter @MadgeMidgely. My local newspaper, The Wyoming Tribune Eagle,
Madge Midley wonders: Whither goest the Capital City?
posts on Twitter. Almost every published article is behind a paywall. Why then use Twitter? 
I don’t think more than a handful of people follow them. Many of these published pieces are basic AP wire reporting from other places across the map yet still behind a paywall.
The most worthwhile reporting in the aforementioned periodical are obits and police blotters. It is generic and lacks substance when it comes to the content of local reporting.
A few of the things I want to know, as of recently, is in regard to the magnanimous money drops made in our downtown area. I want to know what the hell is happening under our noses through developing backdoor deals. I want to know how the “good ole boys” club is adapting to the digital age by funding the progeny lines of wealth and what it means to the regular Cheyenne resident in the long run.
I don’t want to pay $14 for a cocktail downtown to impress anyone. Look into the scam of alcohol pricing.
I like to go to my favorite hole-in-the-wall pub when I get the chance to have a reasonably priced adult beverage while having a conversation with old-timer locals who work hard for people who have the money and tend to abuse their help. Sounds like a good time, right?
My attention toward them is like a rainbow during a storm, and each time I see these people, these residents of the city I live in, I see how time and lack of appreciation are taking their toll.
If anyone shows up to a memorial for them, it will be because of the potential for free drinks or to brag about what a good job they did for businesses. That will be the end of it until some night down the line a patron gets drunk and sentimental and maybe says something out of line or provocative.
These are the type of people who live downtown but will never be able to enjoy what it has to offer as the money dumps and changes proceed without consideration to the local community.

It kind of sounds like gentrification.
Those with money are not asking what Cheyenne needs as a city with a variable in demographics. However, they are putting their money where their desires are, and these aren’t “passion projects” – these are investments.
Of course, a person can invest in their own passion project, but this usually comes later, once an entrepreneur type is more established. Investments require only a passion to make large amounts of residual income. Something that pays for itself over and over again. Something the investor finds useful to their own vision and benefit.

Why does it feel like my city has no planning?
Because it doesn’t it seem to with any legitimacy. This is a town that once was segregated by the direction of the roads, where “colored people” couldn’t purchase property in The Avenues.
It mostly appears to be a hustle and shuffle behind closed doors between people with money and vision over drinks outside of government regulation. The government is complacent in just trying to find streams of income without actually planning the city based on its needs and developing a unique personality. 
Oh and some of these money streams hold government positions.

I live in a town of nepotism.
We are like the old Western town fronts that were just pieces of boards propped up and painted in some sort of nostalgia that wants to shift on a dime and become “hip.” But it has no foundation for such a broad jump.
Just because it “wants to be” something doesn’t mean that it is or is ready for what it means for a dramatic personality shift in a drastic and different direction.
I want to think that the younger entrepreneurs in my city mean the best and are using their wealth in that direction. But I sense they are connected to the streams of wealth that are unrealizable for the average Joe and that connection alone is going put them in places of authority that they may or may not actually deserve.
Politics is interesting as it is one of the few ways a supported individual can make insane strides by blowing hot air up innocent asses just by spouting a vision that most likely will never come to fruition in the way the average person expects. It sets people up to become accustomed to that kind of loose delegation through promises with little argument.

It’s time we look beyond the excitement that appears with the hope of the “next new exciting thing” and to start building something that has longevity and value to the people who call this place “home.”
We need to ask ourselves as a community: “What do we actually need? And what do we actually want?” 
And that is what we need to petition for and realize – even if it means finding ways around the common construct that we take for granted to provide us infrastructure.
If those who are in tight with the acquisition of property and moving large dollar sums really want to “help” their community, they will ask those questions and listen carefully to answers of the people.

It is fine if Cheyenne decides to be a modest but interesting destination.
We don’t need to compete if we find our own voice and integrity.  
Sadly it is becoming evident that we will not be able to rely on our governing parties and their networks to ring lead that kind of mission when they have the best and easiest connections to resources.
It is going to have to be a community of people who demand transparency and who are willing to call out corruption and malfeasance then disseminate that information to the residents to decide for themselves about.   
That in and of itself is a battle of interest vs. disinterest.
Life can be hard enough without investing in politics. Most people want to live and let live and hope they have enough to fund their lives with a little left over or for that unexpected expense. These won’t be the people in the $425,000 condos that are the gateway to the “up and coming” art district for interest.
No, the people who would actually do best in an art district are not the seeds the city wants to be planted in that area, and they couldn’t afford it anyway. Those people would flip the investment on its head with new ideas that don’t necessarily pop dollar signs in the eyes of investors. But those ideas could be the rejuvenation this small city needs.
Now is the time to make it known that we want certain things to happen unless we settle and let go of the reins just to see how it unfolds as we continue to complain about the outcomes.
Your move, citizens of Cheyenne. Your move.

Madge Midgley is a local writer.



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