Good move for Electric City

Electric City will soon have a new city clerk.

Peggy Nevsimal is leaving her post as executive director of the local chamber of commerce to accept another community challenge. It was a wise move by the council there.

Peggy has been head of the chamber for eight years, moving it from a largely information center to a festival-centered organization.

Peggy brings with her a knowledge of the community. She knows most everyone, and most know her.

She is a great people person whose influence will be felt in Electric City. While the two tasks are different, my bet is she will be highly successful.

The big question is will the new bunch of amateurs there let her help keep things moving forward.

It would be shameful if the newly elected officials in the city keep trying to undo what the former administration worked hard for, largely to start a process of change in place. If a city ever needed to change, it’s Electric City.

Peggy brings organizational skills, a history of getting people to cooperate with each other, and

knowledge of how to shape public opinion, having worked some 20 years on the Chicago Tribune before moving here.

Her history includes many well-traveled experiences in other parts of the world.

Electric City would do well to take time to outline where it wants to go in the future. If it is to just stay the way it is, then it will be wasting Peggy’s skills.

The highly successful festival schedule Peggy has built at the chamber is responsible for the success of many of the area’s businesses, bringing in visitors from far and near who drop a few dollars with each visit. Business owners would do well to thank her for her efforts.

Electric City is at the crossroads of moving forward or returning to the days of the slogan painted on a former city attorney’s building: “Electric City the ugliest city in the west.”

The chamber board is busy seeking Peggy’s replacement, who will build their own vision of where the chamber will go in the future. The board has long been supportive of plans to move forward.

Someone in the community will likely step forward and make a bid for the chamber job; seems there is always someone out there who is willing to match their skills against a challenge.

Electric City has started to build a theme of the “Ice Age Floods” around a community park near the fire department in the city. Bids on the development of the park have come in high. Surprise!

But my hope is that the city will not pare the project down so much that the theme will be compromised. There is always hotel/motel tax money available to fill in the gap.

So, Peggy, good luck out there. And good luck to the new chamber leader, whoever it is.

Peggy takes her new position on March 9.